


Secret of the Blood

by exclamation



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Keith angst, Mind Control, Self-Harm, blade of marmora, injured Shiro, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-09-27 17:46:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 34,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10036877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exclamation/pseuds/exclamation
Summary: AU version of season 2. When Keith and Shiro were thrown from the wormhole, they crashed by the Blade of Marmora headquarters and were captured. When the Blade reveal the secret of Keith's heritage, Keith must decide if he can trust these people... and if he can trust himself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is as canon for season 1 but then takes a detour. It explores the idea of what it might have been like for Keith to learn he was part Galra without meeting Ulaz first and being eased into the idea that not all Galra are evil. Prepare for seriously angsty Keith ahead.

Keith had mere moments to see what was going on after his lion was flung violently from the collapsing wormhole, and those moments filled him with terror. A spiral of matter spun around a dark void that could only be a black hole, the shape of it filling half the windows of the lion's cockpit. On his other side, blazing blue light shone from a star. Keith wrestled with the controls as his lion was towed by the gravity of the black hole, while debris and solar flares filled the space immediately in front of him. If he didn't get smashed to pieces by chunks of rock, he would be caught inescapably in the gravity well. 

"Red," Keith said, as his controls failed to respond. "Come on, Red, don't do this to me." 

The lion drifted sideways towards the black hole and Keith's instruments were dead so he couldn't tell how long he had before they were caught irreversibly, the gravity pulling them so strongly that all of Red's power wouldn't get them free . He tried to remember his training from the Garrison, but black holes hadn't been something they'd expected to face so the training could be summarised as, "Stay away, they're dangerous."

He didn't have much choice right now. He tried to awaken his lion with words and with the control panels, but Red stayed unresponsive. Keith wondered if he would still be conscious to feel it when his body was crushed into an infinitesimally small size by the immense gravity or stretched out like spaghetti by tidal forces. 

Something hit the lion, a lump of rock and ice striking the side of Red with enough force to send them spinning, but fortunately away from the black hole. Of course, now Keith had to worry about not falling into the star, and that was far from the only lump of rock he was likely to face. He needed his instruments and he needed some control over the thrusters. 

"Come on, Red, please. I need you." 

The lights in his panels flickered and went out and then flickered on again for a few moments, enough for Keith to get a basic scan of the nearby area. Was that a dwarf planet in orbit of the star? It seemed impossible for anything to have a stable orbit a place like this, but the universe was full of impossible things, he'd discovered. The panels went dark before Keith could do a more thorough scan but at least he had something to aim for now. Even if the dwarf planet's orbit wasn't stable on a stellar timescale, it should be stable enough for him to check out the damage and let Red's self-repair systems do their work. If he could get Red to respond that was. 

"Just a little thrust, Red. Just a little." 

He could still feel the connection to the lion, albeit faintly, and the lion must have been conscious enough to feel Keith's desperation. There was a short burst from one of their thrusters, adjusting their course, and then Keith could see the dwarf planet filling up the window in front of him. 

His relief was short lived when it became clear that Red wasn't about to fire the thrusters again. There was no deceleration, nothing to slow the decent onto the rocky surface below, and little by way of atmosphere to offer resistance and slow the fall naturally. Keith swore under his breath and braced his head with his arms, hoping his safety harness and armour were up to the task of protecting him from a fall like this. At least the dwarf planet was small enough that its gravity was low. Surviving might still be feasible. 

The impact reverberated through his entire body, shaking him to the core and making him feel like he was being crushed against the safety harness, before he slammed back into the seat as the lion toppled. His head rang with the blow and for a few moments all he could do was breathe and wait for his nerves to stop screaming at him so he could figure out how badly he was injured. 

When he risked moving, he found that his head pounded and he had more aches than he cared to think about, but everything responded. His limbs all reacted properly and he twitched his fingers and toes just to make sure. He would probably have bruises over half his body, but he didn't think anything was broken and there was no major spinal cord damage. He unclipped the harness and risked standing, holding on to the pilot's chair just in case. He felt light-headed but that was possibly just a side effect of the low gravity. He tried to remember the signs of brain injury but couldn't remember most of them, which was probably not a good sign since one of the symptoms he could remember was memory loss. He thought he'd be OK though, and his first priority was to assess his situation. 

"Red?" he called. "Are you with me?" 

The lion didn't respond, but Keith could still feel the connection there, so he guessed the lion would just need time to recover. He hoped. He didn't have Pidge's mechanical skill so he wasn't sure he could fix his beast if the automatic repair systems didn't do their job. He couldn't get the lion's displays to give him anything, either on the status of the lion or on the surrounding area. 

"OK," Keith said. "You rest here. I'll see where we've ended up." 

He checked the integrity of his armour and made sure that the life support was functioning properly, then he made his way out of his lion's cockpit and out onto the rocky surface. The suit's heads up display started feeding him information about gravity and atmosphere. He might be able to survive on the air of this rock if his life support ran out, but the atmosphere was thin enough that he'd probably end up with altitude sickness if he wasn't careful. For now, he'd rely on the armour's supply of air. 

He looked around him, seeing the impact crater from the crash. Red had scored a groove into solid rock from the impact; no wonder he needed to recover. Beyond the line of the crash, Keith could see a trail in the atmosphere, like the exhaust trail of an aircraft. What was more significant though was that there was another trail crossing the sky at an angle to his. Someone else had crashed here. 

Keith instantly turned on his armour's comms. 

"Shiro?" Keith asked, since he and Shiro had been thrown from the wormhole at about the same time. "Shiro can you hear me? Anyone?" 

Silence filled his ears. 

Keith told himself tha it didn't mean anything. The comms unit could have been damaged in the crash, on either side. Or the curvature of this planetoid could be interfering with the signal. Silence didn't mean Shiro was dead. It was possible he was unconscious, but he couldn't be dead. 

Keith set off at a run in the direction the trail led, instructing his display to alert him of the location as soon as it picked up the signal from another lion. The low gravity let him cover the distance in great, leaping strides but still he fought down the need to panic. 

"Shiro?" Keith asked again, once a few hundred metres had disappeared behind him. This time a crackling static came through the earpiece. That was a good sign. It meant someone was trying to respond but there was too much interference or equipment damage for the signal to be picked up clearly. "Shiro?" 

"Hey, Keith," came the reply, and Keith could have cried with relief. The voice was distorted and faint, but it was unmistakably Shiro. Keith kept running, hoping the signal would clear up as he got closer. 

"Are you alright?" Keith asked. 

"I'm doing fine. It takes more than a glowing alien wound, nearly falling into a black hole, and crashing into an asteroid to get rid of me. How are you?" His tone forced cheerfulness in that last question. 

"Not good. The lion's busted. Wait. What wound?" 

"It's nothing." 

But they'd been in a serious battle before they'd crashed here and Shiro wasn't always good at admitting when he got hurt. Keith increased his pace. 

"Stay put," Keith said. "I'm on my way to you." 

"No rush. I'll be here." 

Keith didn't slow down. He was breathing hard but his armour could cope with it and he was getting closer with every moment. The display lit up with a locator icon as it detected the black lion. A few moments later, he saw the tip of Black's form rising out of an impact crater. 

"I see you," Keith said. "I'm nearly there." 

"On second thought," Shiro said, "I might need you to hurry. I've got company." 

"What's happening?" 

But the next thing Shiro said clearly wasn't intended for him, "My name is Shiro. I'm a Paladin of Voltron. We mean you no harm." 

Keith couldn't hear whatever the other party said, he had to wait for Shiro's reply. However, instead of words, he heard an impact noise and a grunt of pain. 

"Shiro?!" 

"Wait! Stop!" Shiro's words were cut off by another cry of pain and then there was nothing. 

"Shiro!" 

Keith drew out his bayard, letting it take its sword shape, and changed towards Shiro. Moments later, he saw a ring of figures in black surrounding Shiro's motionless form. The figures turned towards him, eyes glowing purple behind masked faces. 

"Get away from him!" Keith yelled as he charged, swinging his sword at the nearest figure. 

The alien drew a blade of its own, deflecting Keith's attack with surprising ease. The next moment, another alien had a blade swinging and Keith barely had time to block the strike. His whole arm rang with the strength behind the attack, but his thoughts rang even more when he caught sight of the blade, and of the glowing mark by the hilt. It was the same as the mark on his own knife. 

That moment of distraction was all it took for one of the aliens to twist its blade around Keith's and force the bayard from his hand. Another swept Keith's legs out from under him as he was trying to reclaiming his grip on his weapon. He hit the ground, but rolled with the impact and was back on his feet in seconds, thanks to the low gravity. He prepared to continue the fight, raising his arms into a fighting stance, when one of the aliens called out, "Surrender!" 

Keith's eyes went to that alien, and to the blade it held. The tip of the blade was pressed against Shiro's neck, where his helmet met his chest plate. Was the blade sharp enough to penetrate the armour? 

Keith hesitated. His first instinct was to give up the fight, but if he surrendered, what guarantee did he have that they wouldn't just kill Shiro anyway? For that matter, what guarantee did he have that Shiro wasn't already dead? Letting them capture him could just be yielding his only chance to fight for Shiro's freedom. 

"Your friend is injured," said the alien currently threatening Shiro's life. "If you surrender quickly, we can take him into our base for medical treatment. If you delay by fighting, your friend might die before we can do anything." 

Keith's dilemma didn't last long. The alien was right, if Keith waited too long, Shiro might die whatever they did. He'd talked about the wound even before these creatures had attacked. 

"Alright," Keith said. "I surrender." 

The alien kept the sword aimed at Shiro but looked to one of the others and jerked its head towards Keith. This other alien moved towards Keith and pulled out a set of glowing cuffs from some compartment of its armour. Keith let the alien cuff his hands behind him, while another retrieved his bayard, which had reverted to its dormant form. Only then did the alien by Shiro move the sword away. 

That alien was clearly in charge, issuing orders to the others. It wore similar armour, but had a cowl and hood that the others didn't, setting it apart, perhaps as an indicator of rank. It instructed two of them to take Shiro down to medical and Keith had to hope that the order was genuinely meant and that the aliens weren't just interpreting it as an instruction to take Shiro somewhere to kill him. The two aliens in question were careful about lifting Shiro from the ground, carrying him gently over towards where a hatch opened out of what had previously been a pillar of rock. 

"Take him to the cells," the alien commander ordered the one who'd cuffed Keith, "and then assist in moving the lions into the base. We need to get them hidden before the Galran Empire detects their presence." 

"Wait," said Keith, "you're hiding from the Galran Empire? Then we should be on the same side. We're Paladins of Voltron. We've been fighting against Zarkon." 

But the alien commander didn't seem inclined to discuss it now. Keith found himself marched towards the hatch after Shiro and taken down into a base beneath the surface of the planetoid. The design and architecture reminded Keith of the Galra ships they'd seen, but he wasn't given much chance to sightsee as he was forced down narrow hallways and into what was presumably some sort of elevator. He was taken down further into the base and then into a corridor even darker and narrower than the ones above. The whole feel of this level was oppressive, probably by intent. Keith didn't like the implications of being imprisoned down here. He wouldn't have any way of communicating their location to the other Paladins and he wasn't hopeful about fair treatment by people who would threaten Shiro's life while he was unconscious. 

Keith was marched between two faintly glowing panels, that glowed more brightly as he passed between them. A loud beeping filled the air and he was pulled sharply to a halt by his alien guard. The alien slammed him into the closest wall with enough force to knock the breath from Keith's body and send throbbing pain through his already aching flesh. 

"Deceiver!" it snarled. 

"What?" Keith snarled back, angry to be insulted on top of everything else he'd been through today, especially since he hadn't done anything he thought particularly deceptive. 

"You're still armed," the alien snarled. Keith tried to pull free, but the alien was strong, far stronger than a human of the same size would have been, and it kept Keith firmly pinned. 

"Hey, your boss never asked me if I had another weapon," Keith pointed out. He knew what the alien was talking about. The knife he always had with him was tucked into a special sheath he'd had added to the back of his armour. The knife that had a symbol that matched the ones on the blades these guys wielded. Maybe Keith was finally going to get some answers about that knife, and about where he came from. 

The alien held Keith pinned against the wall with one hand while the other patted him down, finding the sheath easily and drawing out the knife. The hand at Keith's back pushed harder and Keith suspected that his armour was the only thing keeping him from getting crushed right now. 

"Why do you have one of our blades?" the alien demanded. So Keith hadn't been imagining the symbol to be the same. It did mean something. But Keith didn't have the answer to the key question, which was why the hell his knife matched up with theirs. Keith tried to think of an answer that wouldn't get him shoved into things. 

The alien wasn't satisfied with Keith's silence because it snarled again, "Who did you steal it from?" 

"I didn't steal it. It's mine." 

The alien took hold of Keith's arm and yanked him away from the wall before marching him forward again. Keith risked looking round. He couldn't see the alien's face, but he could see its other hand, clenched tightly around the hilt of Keith's knife as though he wanted to slit Keith's throat with it. 

They reached a rectangular opening in the wall which led into some sort of alcove. The cuffs suddenly came loose from Keith's wrists. It caught Keith off-guard enough that he didn't have a chance to fight before the alien shoved Keith inside the alcove. The shove was hard enough that he hit the back wall. He spun round to face the alien again, raising his arms to get in a few blows of his own, but a glowing barrier had already formed between them, trapping Keith in this small space. The purple eyes of the alien's mask were fixed on Keith. 

"When our leader asks you about the knife," the alien said, "you should tell him the truth. Remember, your friend's life depends on our mercy." 

With that, the alien turned and walked away, still holding Keith's knife. That hurt more than the loss of his bayard. His bayard was an important weapon in the fight against Zarkon, but the knife was part of his past, part of _him_. He couldn't stand the thought of losing it.


	2. Chapter 2

Keith sat in his tiny cell, leaning against the back wall. He just had enough room for his legs to be straight out in front of him without them brushing against the energy barrier. He'd learned that the energy barrier hurt like hell when touched, even through the armour, and he had no intention of touching it again by accident. 

Every part of him felt somewhere between uncomfortable and painful. What parts of him didn't ache from the crash and the fight ached from sitting on the hard floor of this tiny cell. He wanted to take his armour off and assess his injuries more carefully, but he didn't want to lose his only protection. If the aliens let him out of this cell, he might need his armour. He had to be prepared to fight at a moment's notice. 

He couldn't afford to let his guard down and do something like sleep. Not that he thought he would be able to sleep. He hurt all over with a dull, throbbing pain that filled every muscle of his body. Besides, he couldn't stop worrying about what was happening to Shiro. His friend was somewhere in this base and he only had the word of aliens who'd already attacked them that he was getting medical treatment. Shiro could be dead already and he wouldn't know. 

And he didn't dare think about the others. What had happened to them when the wormhole collapsed? He'd nearly been sucked into a black hole so there was no way to tell where the wormhole might have dumped them. What if they'd come out in the middle of a supernova or something? 

Keith kept a timer running on his heads up display so he knew how long he'd been here. It felt like days, sitting in the silence with only his worries running round in circles in his head, but his timer told him it was just under two hours. Plenty of time for them to have tortured Shiro horribly. His suit's scanners couldn't tell him anything about what was going on around him. Their signals couldn't penetrate his cell's walls or the energy barrier. So he had nothing to tell him what was going on. 

He wondered if this was meant to be a form of psychological torture, if they planned on leaving him in here until he broke from the silence. Resisting torture hadn't been on the class list at the Garrison, so Keith didn't know what to do in this situation. At least he'd always been good at being alone. He thought back to his little house in the desert, but even that had never been completely silent. There had always been the hum of his electricity generator or the way the wind stirred up the sand outside. He felt like he'd never known real silence until this moment. 

When the silence finally broke, Keith thought he was imagining it for a moment, but the footsteps grew louder and Keith scrambled to his feet. He needed to lean on the walls to heave himself up as his legs throbbed with fresh pain. He wasn't sure if this was still the after effects of the crash or if they were just cramping from staying in the same position too long. 

One of the aliens stepped up to the other side of the energy barrier. It was dressed as they'd all been, with the purple glowing eyes on its mask, so Keith couldn't tell if this was one of the ones he'd already encountered or a new one. 

"Is Shiro alright?" Keith demanded. 

"Your friend is still with medical. He suffered a great deal of damage but he is healing, He will probably live." 

Those words weren't as comforting as Keith might have hoped for, but it still was enough to ease his terror somewhat. It did nothing for his anger though. 

"He suffered damage," he said, "when you attacked him for no reason after we crashed here by accident." 

"How can you claim your arrival here was accidental when you carry one of our blades and your friend has the coordinates for one of our bases encrypted in his arm?" 

"He... what?" Keith couldn't answer that because it sounded utterly ridiculous. How could anything be encrypted in an arm, even a mechanical one? And why would it be linked to these... people? 

"I want an explanation," the alien said. 

"You and me both." Maybe their arrival here hadn't been an accident. After all, space was enormous and most of it was made up of, well, space. It was already improbably that they'd emerge from the wormhole randomly and happen to be close to a stellar body, much less one with a habitable planetoid in orbit. How much more improbable was it that they'd arrive close to a group that was apparently linked to them in more than one way? 

"Do not forget that your friend's life is in our hands," the alien said, "as is yours." 

"Trust me, I hadn't forgotten," Keith said, "but I can't tell you what I don't know and I only have your word that you haven't killed Shiro already." 

The alien considered this for a minute and then nodded. "Answer my questions honestly and I will take you to see your friend so that you can see for yourself that he is alive." 

That was probably the best deal Keith was going to get right now but he still wanted to bargain. Information was all he had to offer so he wanted to get the best price for it. 

"I'll answer you," Keith said, "but in exchange, I want you to answer me. I want to know how one of your knives ended up on Earth with me. Have your people ever been to Earth?" 

"I don't even know where that planet is," the alien answered. "I haven't authorised any missions to a planet with that name." 

So he wasn't denying the possibility, just denying knowledge. Keith couldn't tell if it was being honest or not. 

The alien continued, "How did you come to be here?" 

So Keith told him about the battle about Zarkon and how they'd made their escape when Zarkon's shield had fallen for some unknown reason, how the wormhole had been hit by a corrupting energy, and how he and Shiro had been flung from its course. He summed up the crash and finished with, "You know the rest." 

The alien seemed to be listening carefully, but Keith wished he could see the face behind the mask to get a better idea of what it was thinking. There was a long pause while the alien considered Keith's words. 

"How did you come by one of our knives?" the alien asked. 

"I've had it for as long as I can remember," Keith answered. "One of my earliest memories is cutting myself on it by accident and my dad telling me to be careful with it. He said he wasn't going to take it away from me because it was my birth right but that it wasn't a toy." He couldn't remember another conversation with his dad about the knife, at least not one that had yielded satisfactory answers. He'd tried, on his tenth birthday, to claim that he was grown up enough to know where the knife had come from, but his dad had told him he was still too young. His dad had promised to tell him in a few years, but of course he hadn't been there in a few years to tell him anything. 

"Your father," the alien said, "he was human?" 

"Your turn to answer a question first. What does the symbol mean?" 

"It is the symbol of our organisation. Only those who have passed our tests may carry it." 

Keith decided he was probably expected to answer the earlier question now, so he said, "Yes, my father was human. What sort of tests?" 

"Tests to determine if someone is worthy of being one of us." 

"How do you decide if someone's worthy?" 

The alien tilted its head. When it spoke again, Keith thought from its tone it might be slightly amused, "It's not your turn." 

"OK, fine," Keith said. "What's your next question?" 

"Was your mother human?" the alien asked. 

The question was bewildering. Keith opened his mouth to say that of course his mother was human. What else could she be? He was human, after all. But then he closed his mouth and considered carefully. The alien hadn't outright denied something just because he hadn't known of it, it was only fair that Keith be as cautious. 

"I never knew my mother," Keith said. "My dad never talked about her." He considered what his next question should be, deciding to focus on something other than the knife, since it was starting to seem that neither of them knew how he'd got it. "Are you enemies of the Galra?" 

"We are enemies of Zarkon," the alien said. Again, there was that hint of something that could have been amusement when the alien answered, but Keith couldn't see the joke. "You and your friend are enemies of Zarkon?" 

"Yes. Definitely. We're Paladins of Voltron. The lions really should have given it away. Now when are you going to let me see Shiro? I've answered your questions." 

The alien considered the question and then nodded. "I will take you to your friend. Do not try to resist or you will find yourself back in this cell without seeing him." 

Keith nodded his agreement. He wanted to start kicking his way out the second the barrier dropped, but he wouldn't risk Shiro's safety, at least not until he got to see with his own eyes that Shiro was safe. So Keith stepped calmly out of the cell when the alien touched a switch and the barrier disappeared. He let the alien take a firm hold on his arm and march him away. Keith wished he had some way to record his route with the suit's scanners, but he would have to make do with remembering it. He tried to estimate the distance between his cell and the elevator, and memorise the turns taken through the dark hallways. 

It only took a couple of minutes for the walk to the medical area but then a door opened and Keith got a good look at Shiro. 

The black paladin was definitely alive, but showing no signs of consciousness. He had been stripped of his armour, dressed in a plain, black outfit, and was now strapped down on a bed in the middle of a large room, with alien equipment hooked up to him. Some contraption was fixed over his side, presumably doing something with the wound that Shiro had mentioned, but the blinking lights and readouts could have meant anything. Strangely, it was the restraints around Shiro's limbs and across his chest that reassured Keith most. The aliens wouldn't bother restraining Shiro unless they expected him to wake up. There was an alien working on Shrio, bent over the instrumentation attached to the bed. Presumably the local medic. 

"Shiro?" Keith asked, but there was no response. 

"He will be unconscious for some time," said the alien medic. "There was some trauma to his head and we need to bring the swelling down." 

The alien turned towards Keith. From behind, it had just been another figure dressed like the others, but when it turned, Keith saw that this one wasn't wearing a mask. The face that met his gaze was unmistakably Galran. 

Keith started moving the instant he saw the purple fur, not wanting a Galra anywhere near his friend. 

It seemed his interrogator had been expecting this. The instant Keith moved, the alien moved too, twisting Keith's arm and wrapped another arm around Keith's throat. Keith's struggles sent fresh pain through his shoulder and the alien's arm pressed against Keith's neck. It was probably only Keith's armour that kept him from either suffocation or a dislocated joint. Keith kicked out, but he couldn't get enough strength behind the movement and his kicks just deflected uselessly off his captor's armour. 

"Not every Galra works for Zarkon," the alien holding Keith said. 

"I'm not going to let a Galra touch him. You people have already taken his arm from him." 

"That arm," said the medic, "was the work of Zarkon's druids, not us." 

Not was not a distinction Keith cared about right now. As far as he was concerned, all Galrans were monsters and he sure as hell wasn't going to let these ones hurt his friend. Not without a fight. Keith struggled against the grip that held him, but the alien's arms were unrelenting. Keith was shoved across the room towards another bed, much like the one Shiro was now strapped to. It felt like he was trapped in a nightmare, his kicks and struggles having absolutely no effect on the alien holding him. 

"Hey! What are you doing?" Keith demanded, writhing as much as he could given the way his shoulder burned at every movement. His interrogator lifted Keith up with no apparent effort and dumped him on the bed. His arm now free, Keith threw a punch at his interrogator, but didn't have a chance to do more before the medic was on the other side of the bed. Between them, they pinned his torso to the bed and straps automatically shot out, pinning his arms and chest in place. Keith managed to land one more kick before they had his legs pinned in the same manner. 

He struggled a minute more, testing his limits, but the straps were tight and unyielding. He wasn't going to break through any time soon. 

Keith went still, relaxing his body against the slight padding of the bed, and glared up at his captors. 

"You Galran bastards," Keith said. 

The alien who'd interrogated him didn't seem to care in the slightest about Keith's anger. It just looked at the medic and said, "Do a full scan. Send me the results when you have them." Then it walked away. 

Keith turned his glared on the medic instead. 

"This won't hurt at all," the medic said. 

"Like I can believe a word a Galran says." 

The medic brought over an instrument, a rectangular shape on a frame that was high enough for the medic to position it over the bed. Presumably this was what would do the scan. After the medic pressed a few buttons, a light shone down from the machine, starting at Keith's feet and moving up his body. The medic had been telling the truth, it seemed, because Keith didn't feel a thing where the light passed over him. 

"What's this thing doing?" he demanded. 

"At the moment," the medic said, "it is taking a basic scan, analysing your anatomy and looking for signs of trauma. This is just the first stage of the scan. The other stages will analyse your body to a cellular, biochemical, and DNA level. It will tell us all we need to know about your physiology. I'm not sure why Kolivan wanted a full scan. We already performed one on your friend." 

Keith guessed that was in fact the point. The alien interrogator, Kolivan, wanted to see if there were any physiological differences between Keith and Shiro. The alien had asked about Keith's parents. Keith didn't believe it was possible that his mother could have been anything other than human, but a test like this would make it clear. 

He closed his eyes to avoid the glare as the scanner light reached his head, but he still didn't feel anything. 

The medic was tapping away at the machine again, hmming at the results. 

"You've suffered a lot of physical trauma," the medic said. 

"I just got out of a battle, crashed here, and got beaten up by you guys, what do you expect?" Keith doubted many of his injuries were caused by these guys. They'd restrained him thoroughly and shoved him around quite a bit, but he didn't think they'd done any real damage. Most of the shoves had probably only hurt so much because he was already battered. That in itself was strange. Galrans weren't exactly known for being gentle. Keith might have expected a whole lot more pain to have accompanied his interrogation. 

And if these guys were Galra, why had they cared about hiding the lions? So much about this didn't make sense, but there was one treacherous thought that said something did. The first time he'd seen Galran symbols, when he'd been on the ship looking for Red, he'd been distracted by how similar they'd looked to the symbol on his knife. He hadn't had an explanation for it at the time and he still didn't really have an explanation, but it did fit. He just didn't know what the implications were. 

The scanner restarted back at his feet and Keith opened his eyes again, turning to look at Shiro. 

"Is he going to be OK?" Keith asked. 

"I believe so," the medic said, "judging by what I can identify of your physiology from the scans. The wound in his side is healing and the swelling around his brain has already been reduced. There is a large amount of bruising and some abrasions, and I believe some strain in the muscles of the right leg, but I want to wait until the more serious injury has healed before I activate the healing unit on the more minor ones." 

Keith had no reason to believe this Galra, but he also couldn't see why he'd lie. This Galra didn't seem as severe as Kolivan, so maybe Keith could use this to his advantage. If the medic was willing to be talkative about their injuries, he might be persuaded to talk on other subjects. 

"My name's Keith," Keith said. "Do you have a name?" 

"Ondain," the medic said. 

"Ondain. Hi. So, I take it Kolivan is your boss?" Keith wasn't sure how to be subtle about his questioning, so he thought he'd just jump straight in. Ondain didn't seem to mind. He kept working on the scanner while he answered. 

"He is the leader of the Blade of Marmora." 

"The blade of what?" 

Ondain didn't answer, but that might have been because he was distracted by something on the scanner rather than any attempt to deflect the question. He frowned at whatever he could see on his displays. 

"Your cellular structure seems to be more resilient than that of your friend," Ondain said. 

"I'm younger," Keith said. Ondain nodded, accepting that as an answer. When it was clear the Ondain wasn't going to answer Keith's question, Keith pressed on in a different direction. 

"Have you been fighting Zarkon long?" He watched Ondain's face for any sign of surprise. If Ondain was confused by the question, it might be a sign that Kolivan had been lying in their exchange earlier, but Ondain accepting the question without any visible sign of surprise. 

"I don't do much fighting myself," he said. "I assist with injuries after battles, but I've been doing that for some time now. My mother smuggled me out of the base on Dentack when it became clear I could never survive the Galran military training and she brought me to the Blade. They trained me in other skills that were more suited to my talents." 

"The Galran Empire wouldn't let you be a doctor?" 

"Helping those who failed to win in battle was not considered an honourable duty," Ondain said. 

"On my world, saving lives is about as honourable as it gets," said Keith, since flattery might help get this guy on his side. Ondain didn't seem swayed by the words though. 

He said, "Here, it's a necessity. We are greatly outnumbered." 

He frowned again at the scanner and then walked over to the side of the room. Keith twisted his head as best he could to watch, but he couldn't see very clearly as Ondain pressed a button on the wall and a draw slid out. Ondain took something out and returned to Keith, holding a clear bottle containing something that glowed with faintly purple light. 

"What's that?" Keith asked, suddenly anxious. 

"It should ease your pain." 

"Should? I don't want you stick that stuff in me if you're not sure." 

"The scanner indicates that this substance won't be toxic to you." 

"Still not filling me with confidence," Keith said. "Keep that stuff away from me." Not taking in anything that glowed seemed like a good rule of thumb. It was probably radioactive or something. He didn't want to get cancer just to get a pain killer that might not even work. 

Ondain stared at Keith for a few moments then, to Keith's astonishment, took the proposed pain killer and put it away again. Was the alien actually listening to Keith's opinion about his treatment? Keith wasn't sure what to make of that. 

Ondain returned to the scanner, frowning deeper at whatever he saw there. Keith tried to think of the best way to take this unusual interrogation. What was the most useful information he could get from an alien medic that would help him escape and get a signal to the other paladins? Just asking about the location of communication equipment or the defensive measures equipped here would probably just tip Ondain off to what Keith was trying to do. 

"Do you get a lot of patients?" Keith asked. 

"Not enough. Usually if things go wrong on a mission, the Blades don't make it back for my care." He sounded genuinely sad about that. 

"That's a shame," Keith said. He couldn't care less about a bunch of Galran fighters dying, but he could pretend to sympathise to keep Ondain on his side in the name of more information. 

He was wracking his brain for another question when Ondain said, "That's strange." 

He pressed controls on the scanner, peering in closer to see the results. 

"What?" Keith asked. Ondain didn't answer. "What?" Still no answer. "If there's something wrong with me, I deserve to know." 

"Your DNA makeup," Ondain said, looking thoroughly confused, "it's part Galra."


	3. Chapter 3

Keith couldn't believe a word these people said. They were playing mind games on him, trying to trick him or confused him for some sick purpose. This was probably just the start of a deep, psychological torture intended to twist his mind or turn him against his friends or something. He didn't believe anything Ondain said. Even when Ondain moved the scanner and let Keith see the display, he didn't believe it, because the Galran writing could say anything and Keith only had Ondain's words that the results said Keith was part Galra. 

Except... he'd activated Galran technology without even having to try when all Lance's prodding and button pushing had done nothing. And he'd been hit by some weird, Galran energy during a fight and it had healed his injuries. Then there was the knife, bearing a Galran symbol, that had somehow been with him on Earth. 

"It's impossible," Keith said, because how could he believe that? He was human. He'd lived on Earth his entire life and had a human father. How could a Galra and a human even have a baby in the first place? Two different species on Earth couldn't have kids together and they were pretty closely linked genetically speaking. There was no way that two species that had evolved half a galaxy apart could possibly have a kid together. 

Kolivan returned to the medical room while Keith was mulling over the impossibility of Ondain's statement. At least, Ondain called the new arrival Kolivan, so Keith had to assume it was the same alien who'd interrogated him earlier. He was definitely a Galra, walking into the room without his mask this time, letting Keith see the bluish purple colouring of his face, the reddish patches of fur above the purple skin of his face, and those pointed ears. Keith glared up at him from his position trapped on the bed. 

Kolivan pulled out the knife and Keith tensed, preparing for pain that he had no way of deflecting. 

"You called this knife your birth right," Kolivan said. 

"That's what my dad called it. It's mine and I want it back." 

"The only way I can let you keep this knife is if you pass our tests and become part of the Blade of Marmora." 

"What the hell is the Blade of Marmora?" 

"We are a group dedicated to the fight against Zarkon. We wish to free our people from the rule of a tyrant and release the other worlds for the oppression that Zarkon has caused." 

"You expect me to believe that Galrans fight against Zarkon?" 

"How else do you explain your escape from battle against his forces?" Kolivan said. "You told me that Zarkon's shields went down, allowing you to escape. I have received a message from our spy on Zarkon's ship and he was the one who lowered the shield. You owe your lives to one of our Blades." Kolivan nodded to Shiro, "Your friend there owes his freedom to one of us as well. It was one of us who helped him escape when he was fighting as a gladiator." 

Shiro had never said anything about getting help escaping, but he'd said his memories of his escape were blank or blurred. He seemed to have repressed a lot of what had happened to him in the Galra's clutches, so none of them knew what had happened to allow for that escape. Still, Shiro had said once that he wasn't sure he could have made it out of there on his own. 

"If you want this knife back," Kolivan continued, "you must go through the tests." 

"What kind of tests?" 

"Dangerous ones. Either you will pass the tests or you will die. There is no alternative. When you take the test, the outcomes are knowledge or death" 

Keith considered. He didn't trust these people in the slightest, but he wanted that knife back desperately. It was part of who he was, the last thing he had left of where he came with. Everything else, even his planet, had been stripped away from him. He had no desire to lose this as well. But he couldn't just think about himself. He turned his head and looked past Kolivan to where Shiro lay, still unconscious. 

"What happens to Shiro if I fail?" he asked. 

"Your friend is not the one being tested," Kolivan said. "Whether you live or die will not change what happens to him." 

"What will happen to him?" 

"We cannot allow outsiders to know the location of one of our major bases," Kolivan said. "He will remain a prisoner here until we can safely move our operations to another location, then he will be free to leave. We will not harm him." 

"You were threatening to kill him earlier," Keith pointed out, "why should I believe you now when you say you won't kill him?" 

"One of my people risked his life so that you could escape from your battle. I will not waste that risk by unnecessarily killing someone he helped survive." 

"But killing me if I fail your tests would be necessary?" 

"It is the failure that would kill you. If you choose not the take the tests, we will release you along with your friend when we move our base." 

"But you won't let me keep the knife if that happens?" 

"No." 

Keith considered. Assuming that anything Kolivan was saying was true, then Shiro would be safe either way. It was only Keith's life he was risking and that was a risk worth taking. 

"I'll take your tests," Keith said. 

Kolivan nodded and looked to Ondain, "Heal him as best you can from his injuries. He should be at full strength when he takes the test." 

"Yes, sir," Ondain said. Kolivan walked out, still holding the knife. 

Keith turned to the medic, "So, how likely am I to die?" 

"I don't know, but I suggest you let me give you the pain killer." 

***

Two guards came into the medical room to watch over Keith when he was released from the bed. He was instructed to remove his armour and then, when he complied, he was strapped down again for Ondain to apply various pieces of equipment to him. These he could feel the effects of, first a mild warmth that flowed into his body and then an easing of the pain. Keith could see the effects as Ondain moved them up and down his body, dark bruising fading to healthy skin, grazes and cuts fading to smooth skin in a matter of minutes. Parts of him still throbbed with pain but each minute reduced that to something easier to ignore, his injuries reduced to dull aches. 

He felt almost back to normal when the guards released him from the restraints again and handed him a dark bodysuit to wear. The suit was heavy, but made of a flexible fabric that moulded to his body, clinging like a second skin. Strange purple lights shone in places, but Keith had no idea what they meant. He asked to wear his armour instead but was told that everyone who took the test wore the same so ensure that no one had an advantage. 

Keith tested his movement and found that he actually had more flexibility than in his armour. He just wouldn't have anything to soften the impact of any blows he took and there would be nothing to protect him from the blades these people all seemed to wear strapped to their backs. He was assuming that the tests would involve fighting, but he would find out one way or the other soon enough. 

When he said he was ready, the guards marched him from the medical room. Keith gave Shiro one last glance, wondering if he would survive to see him again. If Keith died here, what would Shiro do? Maybe Keith should have at least waited until Shiro regained consciousness before asking for this test, but he knew that if he'd done that, Shiro would have tried to talk him out of it. This was Keith's choice to make, Keith's past at stake, and he was going to see this through. If he survived, he'd apologise to Shiro later. 

Kolivan was waiting for him by an open door that led into a large, empty space. Keith looked through and saw the door on the other side of the large room, but no sign of anything that could be part of the test, no obstacles or challenges. He supposed all that would come later. Kolivan was holding Keith's knife, and Keith longed to reach out and grab it from him, but he held himself back. 

"This is your last chance to end this," Kolivan said. "Once the test begins, you will not be able to come back out of this door. You will have to go forward and the only outcomes are knowledge or death." 

"I understand," Keith said. 

"Very well. Then the test will begin." Kolivan gestured to the open door. He held out the knife and Keith took it, fingers closing around the familiar hilt. It fit in his hand the way it always had and felt right there. The nerves that had been fluttering inside him on the walk from the medical room seemed to settle down and a calm confidence filled him. He could fight. If that was what was expected of him, he could get through this test. 

"Do I get any instructions?" Keith asked. 

"Go through the door." 

As instructions went, that was minimal, but Keith did as he was told. He walked through the door and into the large space. He glanced behind him and saw that the door he'd just come through was closing, the edges sealing tightly behind him, blocking his way back. He'd been told he couldn't go back that way, which meant that the only door available to him was the one on the other side of this room. Presumably that was the door Kolivan had meant. He would pass the test if he could make it through that door. 

Keith took a step forward, eyeing his surroundings in case of a trap or a threat, knife raised and ready to strike. Sure enough an obstacle presented itself. A hexagonal hatch opened in the floor and one of the Blade of Marmora rose up on a lift platform from the whole. The figure was dressed as all the aliens had been when they'd captured Keith, face covered with the mask with its glowing, purple eyes, blade held in one hand. The blade the fighter held was longer than the one in Keith's hand, more of a sword than a dagger. That, plus the Galran's natural strength, would give this warrior an advantage over Keith, but he could deal with that. It wasn't like Keith needed to defeat this guy properly, he just needed to get past him, to get to the door. 

"Surrender the blade," the warrior said, "you cannot win." 

Keith wasn't going to give in so easily. He shifted his grip on the knife and charged into the attack.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very similar to the Blade of Marmora episode, but hopefully it's still different enough to be interesting. The next chapter will be firmly back in AU territory again.

Keith hurt everywhere, almost worse than the aftermath of the crash. His muscles ached with exhaustion and his breath came in heavy pants as his lungs fought to get him enough air to keep going. Each round of the fight just made things worse, just added new pain to his already hurting body, and just added yet another foe for him to get past. These fighters weren't trying to kill him, they'd had plenty of opportunities to do so if that had been what they wanted, but they weren't holding much back either. They dealt blows that sent him flying, knocking him sprawling on the hard ground. They sliced his flesh with their blades, the borrowed suit giving almost no protection against the cuts. They caught and twisted his limbs, nearly dislocating joints. Each fight he lost, they gave him the chance to give in, but there was no way in hell he was going surrender to them or give up the knife that was the key to his past. With each refusal, the fighter who had taken him down simply said, "The pain continues." They told him that he wasn't meant to go through the door, but then they let him through the door anyway to find another, identical room, and another fight. 

It was a ritual of agony, a slow death from a thousand blows. He was beginning to wonder if this was a mind game, some amusement for the Galra monsters. How many rooms could there be? How many battles? One after another, he fought and was defeated, and then was allowed to continue anyway to the next fight and the next defeat. Going through the door didn't result in the end of the test, just in another round of blows and cuts and suffering. Maybe there was no way for him to win this. Maybe Kolivan had set him an impossible task just to laugh at him as he failed to overcome it. Because, right now, Keith couldn't see how he could overcome this. 

His confidence had vanished along the way when he'd found himself facing yet another person every time he lost a fight. He'd been taken down in a one-on-one fight with one of the Blades, only to find himself facing two then three then four, all standing between him and the door he needed to get through. Each fight was shorter and more brutal, each loss more definitive. Each time he struggled back to his feet and limped on to the next door, he was more tired. He wasn't going to give up, but it was obvious he wasn't going to win if he kept going as he was. He wasn't going to survive. 

At some point, their blows would do too much damage, or he'd hit his head too hard going down, and the fight would be over forever. If he wanted to avoid being battered to death, he needed to do something _differently_. 

"Patience yields focus," he muttered to himself, remembering the words Shiro had once told him. He needed to think. He needed to be smarter than this. In the brief pause he had between the end of one round of combat and the next, he focused his mind as best he could given the pain and fear surging through him. What did he know? He'd been told he couldn't win, before the very first round of this test. His only instruction had been to go through the door, but after each fight, the opponent that took him down said he wasn't meant to go through _that_ door, meaning the one on the other side of the room. At first, he'd assumed that was an insult, a way of saying that he wasn't worthy of being part of the Blade of Marmora, but what if that wasn't it at all. Knowledge or death, those were the outcomes of this fight according to Kolivan. Right now, Keith was on track for death. Maybe it was time to try knowledge. 

After all, he knew there was another way in and out of these rooms. Maybe that was the test, not to see if he could fight without giving in, but to see if he could think his way around the problem. 

The hexagonal hatches opened in the floor again, bringing up his next batch of opponents. He'd stopped counting how many he was up against. He just started moving, charging towards them as the Blades stepped off their platforms, raising their swords. Keith flung his knife. 

He wasn't aiming for the other fighters. He was aiming for the closest of the hatches. He didn't have time to slow down and wait to see if he hit his target. He was already moving, ducking under a sword, knocking aside a blow, charging at the legs of one of the fighters before finally skidding along the ground towards the hatch. The knife jammed into the hatch before it could close, keeping it open a crack. It was enough. Keith reached the hatch shoved it open, seizing hold of his knife as he dropped down into the darkness below. 

Keith landed heavily on the ground below, a hot pain shooting from his ankle up his leg. He'd twisted that joint during one of the fights and jumping down a couple of metres had probably exacerbated the injury. He just hoped he hadn't done any serious damage to it because he doubted they'd let him pause the fighting to get medical treatment. His shoulder burned too from where one of the swords had cut it, but the suit seemed to be doing a good job of containing the blood. He took a second to do a mental catalogue of injuries but those two seemed to be the worst. He was well enough to continue. Besides, he didn't have much choice. As he stood there, a doorway opened into another corridor. He wasn't sure if he'd just passed the test or disqualified himself, but no one was trying to kill him for the moment and he'd been told to go forward, so go forward he would. 

He stepped forward, eyes alert for another threat, another round of battle. 

The agony burned in his ankle and his head swam, either from pain or exhaustion. The lights up in front of him seemed to blur and shift, the whole world going a little fuzzy around the edges. He wanted to rest. He wanted sleep and water and to just not have people hitting him for a while. As darkness crept in at the edges of his vision, his body seemed to override his brain, shutting down his control over his movements. His legs turned to mush and he collapsed onto the metal floor beneath him. 

He lay there, too tired to think, to hurting to move, and just waited for it to be over. If someone came to fight him now, he wasn't sure he could even lift the knife, but he kept his fingers closed around the hilt anyway. 

He would just close his eyes for a minute. He'd carry on with the fight in just a moment. He just needed a minute. 

There was movement close by. A shadow fell over him. Keith hadn't heard anyone approach and he wondered if he'd lost consciousness for a bit there. He forced his eyes open and tried to get them to focus, astonished by the sight that swam into view. Shiro stood over him in full Paladin armour, extending a hand to help Keith up. 

"Hey, man," Shiro said, "I am glad to see you." 

"Shiro? You're OK?" 

Keith somehow found the strength to move his arm, reaching out and clasping Shiro's hand in his, feeling the strong grip pull him up. His legs were still shaky and weak, but it was easier to stand with Shiro here, and not just because Shiro took some of his weight. He wasn't alone anymore and that made all the difference. 

"I woke up during your test and Kolivan told me what was going on and about their mission here. They let me watch the last couple of your fights. Kolivan said you lasted longer than anyone ever has in those battles. You don't have to keep this up." 

"What are you talking about?" Keith asked. He wondered how hard he'd hit his head back in those fights because something about this wasn't making sense. The world still seemed hazy around the edges of his vision. 

"Kolivan has agreed to let us go. He says it's better if we're out there with Voltron fighting against Zarkon. All you have to do is give them the knife and we can get out of here." 

"I can't give it to them, Shiro," Keith said. He hadn't expected Shiro to understand but he still had to try to make him. 

"We have to find Allura and the others. We have to find out what happened to them when the wormhole collapsed and make sure they're alright. Isn't finding our friends more important than some knife?" 

"This is the only connection I have to my past. It's my chance to learn who I really am." Even if that meant part Galra. He still didn't want to believe that, didn't want to accept that as part of his identity, but either way he had to find out. He'd spent too long with questions and now he really needed some answers. 

"You know exactly who you are," Shiro said, "a Paladin of Voltron. We're all the family you need." The words cut almost as painfully as the swords had earlier. 

"Shiro, you're like a brother to me but I have to do this." 

"No you don't. Just give them the knife." 

"I can't do that." 

"Just give up the knife, Keith! You're only thinking of yourself. We have to find the others!" 

Through all those fights, through the blows and the pain and the terror, Keith hadn't hesitated. He'd known he had to go on without a doubt. Now, there was the faintest hint of doubt creeping into him as Shiro spoke. His friends were out there, possibly scattered across the universe by whatever Zarkon's weapon had done to their wormhole. They might be lost or hurt, or captured by enemies. Keith desperately wanted to find them, to find out that they were safe. He wanted to make sure that they were all alright: Hunk, Pidge, even Lance. Finding them mattered, but this mattered too. If he left now, he might never get another chance at this. He crushed his doubts down with the force of his resolve. 

"I've made my choice," Keith said. 

"Then you've chosen to be alone," Shiro snapped. "I'm taking Black and going to find the others." 

Shiro turned and walked away. 

Keith looked at the knife he held and at the back of his oldest friend, and wondered if this choice was really worth it. All those doubts came rushing back at him, filling him up and Keith started after Shiro, calling out to him to wait. 

Bright light rose around Keith and he wondered if he was about to pass out again, but then everything shifted, the world changing like it was nothing more than a dream, and then he was home. He was somewhere he'd never thought he'd be again, standing in his little house in the desert, everything looking just the way he'd left it on the day they'd found the blue lion and his whole universe had changed. He didn't know how this had happened but right then he didn't care. He was home and he was safe. 

Almost at that thought, there was a rumbling sound and the whole building shook. Keith turned, trying to find the source of the sound. An attack? An earthquake? 

"Keith," a voice said, as familiar as his heartbeat. A man stood there, waiting for him. 

"Dad?" 

"You're home, son." 

Relief and happiness and love all rose up in him at once, wiping away the memory of pain, erasing the terror of the last few hours. His dad was here. His dad would make everything alright, just like he always had. 

Except... there was a crash from outside and the room shook again. Something was wrong here. Sheets covered the windows, blocking out his view. 

"What's going on outside?" Keith asked. As his dad tried to calm him with reassuring words, with promises to tell him everything he'd kept hidden, Keith wanted to give in to the comfort that was being offered, but he couldn't ignore the noises from outside, the crashes and rumbles that reminded him of all the dangers he'd barely escaped. He couldn't pretend it wasn't happening, whatever his dad said. Even as his dad tried to convince him that everything was fine, Keith went to the window and pulled aside the sheet. 

His nightmares faced him. A Galra warship on Earth, attacking the planet he loved. Screams and fire and destruction, his world being destroyed by the enemy. And there was Red, his beloved lion, waiting patiently for him, unable to join in the fight without its pilot. 

Keith thought about Shiro's words, about how he was supposed to be with Voltron, fighting against these alien forces. Keith had abandoned his friends, had let Shrio leave, but he couldn't do it again. He knew what his place was, where he was meant to be. He was a Paladin of Voltron. He wasn't one of the Blade of Marmora and did it really matter where he came from? He was who he was now. Who his mother was, whether he had some Galra DNA, where the knife came from, none of that really mattered when there were lives at stake. He ought to be protecting people, not chasing ghosts. 

Even as his dad issued an ultimatum, promising that Keith would never find out who he really was if he left, Keith's path solidified in front of him. Keith went to the door that stood between him and the fight. He opened it. He walked through.


	5. Chapter 5

Keith opened his eyes. There was a ceiling above him and it wasn't the one from his home on Earth. He blinked at it for a moment, trying to sort through his muddled thoughts. He felt like he was surfacing from a dream. Perhaps he was. It would certainly explain why he'd thought he was back on Earth, talking to his dad. But then the conversation before that, the one with Shiro, had that been a dream too? 

He tried to get his brain working again but everything felt foggy. He was certain he was awake now because everything hurt, from the burning in his ankle to the pounding in his head. This was definitely real. 

Feet approached. Keith managed to roll onto his side, trying to see who was coming. It was Kolivan, dressed in his dark armour, sword at his side. Some of his warriors stood behind him, their swords strapped to their backs. Did he expect Keith to fight? Was this still part of the test? Keith wasn't sure he could even stand right now, but pushed himself up, making it to a sitting position as the world swirled and swayed around him. The test that had seemed to critical earlier now seemed unimportant. What mattered was fixing Red and getting back to the others, knife or no knife. 

"I need to get out of here," Keith said. "Let me take Shiro and the lions. We have to get back to Voltron." 

"You can't leave with the knife," Kolivan said. 

Despite everything he'd just put himself through, even though it would make all the agony of the recent hours pointless, Keith said, "Take the knife. It doesn't matter where I come from. I know who I am. I'm a Paladin of Voltron and my place is in the fight against Zarkon. If that means I give up this knife, fine." 

He raised his hand, holding out the knife towards Kolivan, but even as he did so, the symbol on the hilt grew brighter. Kolivan took a step forward, but he made no move to take the knife from Keith. He just watched as the light turned blinding. Keith wondered if he was still dreaming as the knife changed in a burst of white, leaving him holding a sword the same as the ones the others here wielded. 

"You've awoken the blade," Kolivan said. 

"I don't understand," said Keith staring at the sword that had been his knife. 

"It means that you definitely have Galra blood in your veins, and it means that you are worthy of being part of the Blade of Marmora." 

"I... I still don't understand." 

"You passed the test." 

The pounding in Keith's head seemed to be getting worse with every moment, blocking out his ability to form thoughts. 

"But... I gave up. How could giving up be the answer?" 

Kolivan crouched in front of Keith so he could look him in the eye, "You went into the test to gain something for yourself, answers you desperately wanted. You passed the test when you chose to sacrifice what mattered to you for the sake of the fight. We all may have to sacrifice a great deal in order to win against Zarkon. We don't allow anyone into our order who isn't willing to put the fight first." 

"But you said to go through the door. You said that was the way to win." 

"And you did go through the door, in the mindscape created by the suit. You chose to leave your family to go to the fight." 

Keith felt that he ought to be angry but he was too exhausted to feel much of anything right now, "You were in my head?" 

"In a way. Come, you should get back to medical to have your injuries tended to." 

Kolivan offered Keith a hand and Keith took it, not because he particularly wanted to shake hands with the guy but because he was realistic about his chances of standing up if he didn't. The whole world swayed again and his ankle really didn't want to take his weight anymore. He was forced to lean against Kolivan and accept the Galra's support as he hobbled down the corridor, but Keith kept his hand around the hilt of the sword. He stared at it. 

"This... really is mine?" Keith asked. 

"It is now. I don't know how it ended up on your planet, or how you happen to have Galra DNA, but the blade responded to you so now it belongs to you." 

"Surely, if one of your order came to Earth, you'd have records?" 

"We are very careful about the records we keep. We operate in secret and have to make sure we don't leave any information Zarkon's forces could use to track us down. Our order has existed for generations and we know very little about what came before our own time. If it was your grandparent or great-grandparent who was one of us then we would have no way to trace that information back." 

"So, after all that, I still don't have any information about where I came from?" 

"I'm sorry, Keith." 

Maybe it was the tiredness talking, but Keith thought Kolivan meant it. Not long ago, he would have found the idea of believing a Galra about anything to be laughable, but all this talk about fighting Zarkon was finally breaking through his stubbornness. 

They reached the medical room, Kolivan still holding Keith up, and the door opened. Shiro was lying in a bed in the middle of the room, exactly as he'd been when Keith had left to begin his test. So the conversation hadn't been real. He felt more relieved at that than was probably acceptable, but he was glad Shiro didn't know that he'd considered turning his back on Voltron. For a while, Keith had considered that finding out about his past was more important than finding out what happened to the other Paladins, or if Allura and Coran were alright, or if the lions were recovering from the battle. They had been chosen to defend the universe from evil, and Keith felt like a traitor for even thinking about turning his back on that fight. 

Ondain was waiting for him and came over to check his injuries, first saying that he needed to get the suit off Keith. Keith tried to bring his arm around to reach the fastenings, but he winced at the pain that shot through his shoulder and Ondain quickly stepped forward to help. Keith probably should care about the fact that a Galra was undressing him, but getting the injuries taken care of seemed like a really good idea. Keith bit his teeth against a new wave of pain as the fabric stuck to his skin thanks to the blood from the cut, but once Ondain peeled it away, Keith could see that the cut didn't go too deep. He had to hope that the rest of his injuries would be similarly superficial. 

Once Keith was stripped down to his underwear, Kolivan helped him up onto the bed he'd been trapped on earlier, but this time no one made any attempt to strap him down. Perhaps they thought he was too badly battered to put up much of a fight right now. Keith would hardly blame them if that were the case. He didn't think he could fight off a kitten, let alone the highly skilled warriors that filled this base. He lay back and closed his eyes, wondering if they had a bath round here. He longed to soak the sweat of combat from his skin and soothe his aching muscles with hot water. 

***

Keith woke to swearing and shouting. He sat up, reaching for a weapon, and seized the sword that had been left by his side. It took him a moment to wake up enough to realise what was going on. Shiro was on the bed across from him, wide awake now and obviously furious. His metal arm blazed with purple energy and tore free of the restraints, smashing part of the bed to bits as he reached for the other straps and started breaking them apart. 

Ondain was cowering in the corner which was probably sensible given that Shiro was snarling about not wanting "stinking Galra hands" on him. 

"Shiro," Keith said, jumping quickly from the bed, or trying to. His leg gave way beneath him, pain shooting through his ankle from his earlier injury. He grabbed at the bed to keep from collapsing completely. 

"Keith?" 

"It's OK. We're safe." Keith risked putting weight on his ankle and hobbled the few steps over to Shiro's bed. He looked up at Ondain, "Can you switch off the restraints?" 

"Is that sensible?" Ondain asked. 

"You can switch them off or he can break out of them. I know which will make him angrier." 

Ondain crept reluctantly back to Shiro's bed and pressed a switch. As the restraints retracted into the bed, Ondain quickly backed away again. Shiro sat up, looking more carefully at their surroundings and then at Keith. Keith became acutely aware that he was still wearing only his underwear, which didn't do much to conceal the effects of the fight earlier. The cut in his shoulder had closed and most of the scrapes and bruises were well on their way to being healed, thanks no doubt to Ondain's efforts, but Keith still looked pretty badly beaten. Shiro took all of that in and his eyes also fell to the weapon in Keith's hand. 

"What's going on?" Shiro asked. He hadn't powered down his arm, but he also hadn't attacked Ondain the second he was free, which was probably as good a reaction as a Galra was going to get after restraining Shiro in somewhere that looked like a lab. 

"We're on the base of a group of Galran rebels," Keith said. Keith wasn't sure exactly when he'd started believing Kolivan and the others about them fighting against Zarkon, but the idea didn't seem as ludicrous as it had right at the start. 

"Galran rebels?" 

"Apparently it was one of their group who lowered the solar shield and let us escape from the battle with Zarkon." 

Shiro looked at Keith a little longer and then over at Ondain. "Do they have proof that they're not working for Zarkon." 

"You are our proof," said a voice from the doorway. "The scientist Ulaz who enabled your escape when you were a gladiator was one of our group." Kolivan walked into the room and stood a little way from the two Paladins. He wasn't wearing his mask now, but the Galran features didn't make him look any less intimidating and he still had his sword strapped to his side. 

"Ulaz?" Shiro said, frowning. He didn't immediately dismiss the notion, but he also didn't light up with recognition. "That... I don't really remember how I escaped." 

"That is unfortunate," said Kolivan. "He risked his life so that you could return to Earth and find the blue lion before Zarkon." 

"Assuming any of this is true," Shiro said, "why did you attack me after I crashed?" 

"We do not allow outsiders free reign on our bases. Our intent was only to capture you and bring you inside our defences before your presence could be detected by Zarkon's forces but we hadn't realised the extent of your wound. Once we saw your injuries, we brought you to Ondain for treatment." 

Keith decided not to bring up the fact that Kolivan had used Shiro as a hostage in the middle of all that. He didn't want to hide anything from his friend, but there would be a time for full disclosure later. Right now, he wanted to make sure that they got through today without anyone murdering anyone else. At this rate, it would be quite an achievement. 

"Keith, what's your status?" Shiro asked. 

"Parts of me hurt like hell, but I'm healing. I'll be fine." 

"The lions?" 

"Checking on them was on my to-do list," Keith said. "Right after getting dressed." 

Kolivan said, "I will return your armour to you and then show you to your lions myself." 

Keith wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a sign of respect, or a just a sign that Kolivan didn't trust them not to jump in the lions and launch an attack on the base. Right now, checking that Red was recovering and seeing if they could detect some sign of the others was more important. Still, there were other things he really cared about. 

"I don't suppose you have showers in this place?" he asked. "And food?" 

"Food would be good," Shiro agreed. 

***

It turned out that water was a rationed substance on this base, so Keith had to make do with a quick wash to remove the worst of the grime from his body and then he pulled his armour on. His shoulder was thankfully a lot better than it had been before falling asleep, so he was able to get the armour on without having to ask anyone for help. Then he ate a dry ration bar that tasted of cardboard and sawdust as he limped along with Shiro behind Kolivan. Keith had been given his bayard back along with his armour, and he still held onto his knife in its sword form, which seemed to be easing Shiro's fears somewhat. Shiro of course couldn't be disarmed without literally disarming him, so both of them had working weapons in case they needed them. 

Keith had no doubt that Kolivan could defend himself if it came to a fight, but this show of trust would hopefully make a fight less likely. After yesterday, or whenever the hell his test had been, Keith was in no hurry to get into another battle. 

As they walked, Shiro asked about this band of rebels and Kolivan gave some brief answers. Most of them were Galran, but not all. They had spies working inside Zarkon's forces. They operated under strict secrecy so they had to limit their missions to ones that would not give them away. The lowering of the solar shield had been a major risk that could damage the cover of one of their top operatives, but it had been deemed worth it in order to protect Voltron. 

"This is all fascinating," Shiro said, "and if you're telling the truth then an alliance between us could be immensely valuable, but we don't have any evidence that this isn't a trap. You could be lying to us so that we lure Voltron here to be captured." 

"I have no intention of luring Voltron here," Kolivan said. "If Zarkon tracks you, it would undermine our entire operation and threaten to destroy all we've been fighting for. No. I don't want you sending any signals to your friends until you are a long way from here." 

"So you don't want us contacting our friends?" Shiro asked. He sounded as suspicious about that as he had been about the idea of them sending a signal to bring the others here. Keith supposed that after everything Shiro had been through, some caution was understandable, but it was going to be hard for Kolivan to demonstrate he was on their side. Keith tried to figure out what it was that had convinced him. 

He'd been convinced Kolivan was an enemy the first time they'd spoken, despite the words the Galran had offered. He'd been trying to figure out a way to outsmart Ondain even while the medic was treating his wounds. Even going into the tests, he'd been hesitant, unsure if this was just some elaborate trick designed to deceive them. Keith hadn't started considering the Blade of Malmora to be potential allies until after his test. 

The test in which they'd proved they could get inside his head, pull scenarios out based on his memories and make him think things were happening when they weren't. 

Keith froze, a cold terror suddenly filling him. These people had been playing games with his mind. How could he trust in even his own thoughts anymore?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And hello angst. :)


	6. Chapter 6

"What's wrong?" Shiro asked, turning to look at Keith. Ahead of them in the corridor, Kolivan stopped and looked back. Keith couldn't say anything, he couldn't let Kolivan know what he feared in case he was right. He just shook his head. 

"It's nothing," Keith said. "My ankle's just bothering me." 

That had the advantage of not being technically a lie, his ankle really was painful and the walk through the base wasn't helping. 

"We're nearly there," Kolivan said, and Keith nodded, continuing to walk. He would have to find some way to let Shiro know what he was worried about when he could be confident that Kolivan and the others here couldn't overhear them. He'd told Shiro that these people were fighting against Zarkon, he'd said it as though he was certain of it, but now he wasn't certain of anything. If Kolivan had planted the seeds of trust while Keith was hallucinating his dad, then everything Keith had said to calm Shiro down earlier could all be part of a plot. He'd have to lay out all the facts and then trust in Shiro's judgement instead of his own. 

Kolivan opened a doorway into a vast hanger. A few Galran fighters were docked along the edges of the space, but not nearly as many as this place had room for. Most of the space was instead taken up by the two lions crouched in the middle, their particle shields raised. The red lion lifted its head a little as Keith walked in, eyes lighting with power. Shiro walked up to the particle shield and the black lion started to come awake too, turning to watch its Paladin. At least the lions were alright. Keith couldn't trust his own thoughts, but he knew the Red was safe and the particle shield meant the lion had been capable of defending itself. 

"I can't allow you to leave yet," Kolivan said. 

"I'm going to make sure my lion is OK," Shiro said, in a tone that suggested he would fight to the death anyone who tried to stand between him and his lion. 

"Zarkon is probably looking for you. We are preparing to evacuate to a reserve base but we can't let you leave our shielded area until we can be sure that Zarkon detecting you won't expose us." 

Keith saw an opportunity to get some privacy with Shiro as well as mollifying Kolivan, so he said, "How about I go with Shiro into Black to check out the situation. You can be sure we won't leave because I'm not going to leave Red behind. Then when we're done, we can both go and do the same with Red, and you can be sure that we won't leave Black behind." 

Kolivan considered, then nodded his agreement. 

Shiro placed a hand on Black's particle shield and said, "It's me." 

The shield dropped in an instant, but it rose again as soon as Keith and Shiro had walked inside its protected area. It seemed the black lion wasn't any more trusting of their hosts than Shiro was. Keith followed Shiro into the cockpit and watched as Shiro slid into the pilot's seat, bringing up the interior displays to check the damage and the progress of the self-healing systems. Keith watched him work for a few seconds, trying to work out the best way to explain his situation. He wasn't sure there was a good way. 

"I don't think you can trust me," Keith said. 

"What?" Shiro spun towards him, confusion written on his face. "Of course I can trust you, Keith." 

Keith shook his head, fingers tightening around the hilt of the sword. "There was a test, to see if I could be let into their ranks. It started out with some fights against their warriors but then they got inside my head." 

"Inside how?" 

"I saw things. Dreams or hallucinations or something. Conversations with you, with my dad." 

"Your dad?" Shiro knew the full implication of that. He'd been assigned as Keith's mentor to help him through the grief after his dad died. 

"They put together scenarios to test me based on my memories and then, after the test, I believed them about working against Zarkon, but what if they planted that belief in my brain while they were playing mind games? I want to believe that they're allies but what if I only think that because they messed with my head? How am I supposed to trust anything I think I know if I could have a conversation with my dad and believe it was real?" 

Shiro stood and put a hand on Keith's shoulder, looking him in the eye, "Keith, it'll be OK." 

Keith wasn't sure how, but he wanted to believe it when Shiro said it. Keith wondered if he should tell Shiro the rest, about what Ondain had told him and the conclusion from the blade's transformation, but he didn't know if any of that were really true. If Kolivan was lying about the rest, he would have no reason not to lie about this too. If he was telling the truth, then Keith would admit it then, but there was no need for Shiro to hate him until he knew for certain one way or another whether he really was one of the race who had destroyed Shiro's life and stolen his arm. So Keith continued without a single word about the possibility that he might have Galran blood in his veins. 

"You have to figure out if we can trust these people," Keith said. "If you think that they're the good guys, then great, but if you decide they're enemies, then I'll trust you. Make up your own mind, and don't let them put you in one of their suits." 

"OK. They could be telling the truth," said Shiro. "After all, the Alteans must have trusted the Galra once." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Zarkon was the original Black Paladin." 

As soon as Shiro said it, it made sense. After all, Zarkon had Shiro's bayard and had fought for control of the black lion. If he'd once been that lion's Paladin, the pieces all fit. 

"And," Shiro continued, "someone definitely lowered the shields to help us escape. It could be that Kolivan is being honest." 

"I hope so." Keith really did. He wanted to have some assurance that his thoughts really belonged to him. 

"It'll be OK. We'll get through this, Keith." 

Keith nodded. "You should get back to your checks. We don't want Kolivan to wonder what's taking so long." 

Shiro finished up and concluded that Black was nearly up to full capacity. They hadn't received any signals from the castle or the other lions, but that was probably because of interference from the black hole or the star or the base's security measures. It didn't mean that the other Paladins weren't out there and weren't looking for them. 

After they'd finished with Black, the two of them went over to Red and did the same checks. Red was actually back to full strength already, presumably from having a less severe crash, but there were also no signals from the others. 

"What do you want to do now?" Shiro asked. Keith was surprised to be asked given what he'd just admitted, but he gave his opinion anyway. Shiro could always ignore it if he decided Keith was compromised. 

"I think we should go along with what Kolivan wants. If he's being honest, we could get a very useful ally. If he's lying, we might get more information out of him if he thinks we believe him." 

"That sounds sensible to me, but we should come up with some codes in case things go south. We can expect that we'll be monitored the whole time we're in the base so we won't be able to talk freely. And I want you to stay within my sight at all times." 

Whether that last part was because Shiro didn't trust Kolivan or because he didn't trust Keith was unclear, but Keith agreed to it either way. He would be more comfortable knowing that Shiro was watching him. After all, if he didn't trust his own memories, how could he be sure that he wouldn't do something against the Paladins and then have it wiped from his brain afterwards? They made arrangements for some simple codes for if they thought Kolivan was lying or that they were in danger, or if Shiro needed Keith to simply obey instructions without question. Keith committed the list to memory and then the two of them emerged from the lion and returned to Kolivan. 

***

Keith was dozing in a corner of the conference room while Shiro and Kolivan debated strategy. He'd tried to listen at the start, but he was still feeling the aftermath of his test and the tiredness that resulted from the long battle against Zarkon. He slipped in and out of sleep, roused when the words became more heated and then drifting off again. 

This time when he woke, they were talking about prisoners. Something about expanding the ranks of those who fought against Zarkon. Keith forced his eyes open and tried to listen. 

"The more people join, the harder it is to maintain secrecy," Kolivan said. 

"You don't have to swear them into your secret society," Shiro said. "If there are other people out there fighting openly against Zarkon, it would actually help you. It would distract him from the spies in his own midst." 

"But if there are other groups fighting, they could interfere with our plans. They could even kill our agents believing them to be loyal subjects of Zarkon." 

"So have Voltron act as middlemen. You could feed us information about viable targets, ones that wouldn't put your agents at risk, and then we could communicate that to other rebel groups who wouldn't have to know that you exist. You maintain your precious secrecy and Zarkon gets attacked from inside and out." 

"That could work," Kolivan admitted. 

Keith pushed himself up from where he'd been sitting against the wall, stretching out the aches and creaks in his body. He wished he could have slept in a real bed, but the rule about not leaving Shiro's sight was still in place. He pushed himself to his feet and made his way over the table, where the argument had stilled for the minute. 

"How are you feeling?" Shiro asked. 

"Fine," Keith answered, even though his ankle was still a little sore and his shoulder hurt when he stretched it. He'd live. "So what plan have you come up with?" 

"We've been talking about freeing prisoners. Zarkon makes use of slave labour in a lot of places: for mining resources, manufacturing his ships and weapons, all sorts. We could target some of the prison camps and we'd hurt Zarkon's means of production at the same time as freeing prisoners who might be willing to join up with the fight against the empire." 

"Sounds like a win-win situation," Keith said. 

"Most of the slaves will not have combat experience or training," said Kolivan, "and a lot of them will be in very poor physical condition as a result of their imprisonment. You can't be sure what manner of army you'll be able to recruit." 

"Hey, any person fighting against Zarkon is a plus for us," said Keith. 

"Not necessarily," said Kolivan. 

"Unfortunately," said Shiro, "he has a point. Badly organised and untrained fighters can actually do a lot of damage to the side they're meant to be fighting for. It isn't going to be easy to make a coherent fighting force out of former slaves, but I still think it's worth doing, and I think we can make it work if we go for guerrilla tactics." 

"What sort of tactics?" Keith asked. 

"Small strike forces. Hit and run attacks. We'd want to keep Zarkon off-balance, unsure where the next attack is coming from. We can chip away at his forces and if we lose any single battle it's not the end of the fight for our side." 

"We've done a few attacks of our own like that," Kolivan said, "but we've always had to maintain secrecy, so we would only make an attack when we could be sure no one would trace it back to us, or where we could make it look like an accident. We took out a shipment of weapons by making it look like an engine failure on the ship, we made a collapse at a major mining operation look like tectonic activity, damaging Zarkon's resources without giving ourselves away." 

"An open resistance group wouldn't have to worry about making things look like an accident," Shiro said. "In fact, the more open we can be about our presence, the better. More people will be willing to join the fight if they see attacks succeeding. Right now, Voltron is as important as a symbol as it as an actually fighting force. We need to give people hope." 

Kolivan considered this. "You're right. It's not a tactic the Blade of Malmora are used to using, but there's no reason our two groups shouldn't work in parallel. Open attacks by Voltron will give us an opportunity to achieve goals we haven't managed to on our own." 

"What goals?" 

"A scientist who provided much of our shielding and stealth technology was captured by the empire and imprisoned. We haven't found a way to free him that wouldn't reveal our presence to Zarkon. If you plan on freeing Zarkon's prisoners, he would be a good target." 

"Do you have a list of prisons?" Shiro asked. 

Kolivan pressed some switches on the edge of the table and the space between them lit up with a display of the galaxy, with a large number of solar systems lit up. Keith gaped at the sheer number of them. 

"Holy crap that's a lot of prisons," Keith muttered. 

"A lot of them are labour camps. As Shiro told you, much of the workforce of the empire is based on slavery. In many cases, whole planets are enslaved and forced to serve Zarkon." 

"Where would we even start?" Rescuing prisoners sounded like a good idea in theory but there must be countless trillions of people spread across the galaxy all in need of saving. How could they decide which group was worth rescuing when so many others were left in suffering? 

"We start with weapons and ships," Shiro said. "If we're going to form a large resistance group, we're going to need to arm ourselves. We haven't the resources on the castle to equip an army. Kolivan, can you identify which of these sites are directly involved in the manufacture or repair or ships and weapons?" 

Kolivan pressed a few more buttons and the display changed, many of the highlighted locations fading, but there were still a hell of a lot lit up. Shiro frowned at the display, eyes darting over the clusters of solar systems and territories. Keith wasn't sure what Shiro was looking for. To Keith it just looked like a mountain of opposition waiting to be scaled. He wasn't going to give up the fight against Zarkon but it was hard to see how they could succeed when they saw evidence of exactly how strong the empire was. 

"I think Earth is somewhere in this area," Shiro said at last, gesturing to an area just off the edge of the display, "so I think we should start with these prisons," he gestured to a cluster of lit up systems close to Earth's estimated location. "Once we get inside the first of our targets, we should be able to get access to their records of prisoners and prisoner transfers and we can use that to pick our next target." 

Keith was confused for a moment why Shiro would care about prisoner transfer records, but when it struck him the answer was so obvious he could have face-palmed. Shiro wanted information about his former crewmates, Pidge's family, who were imprisoned somewhere in Zarkon's regime. He was starting the raids against prisons near Earth because those were the most logical locations for Pidge's father and brother to be held, or to have been held at some point in the past. They would use these attacks to do everything that Shiro had talked about with Kolivan, raising rebel armies and attacking the foundation of Zarkon's resources, but they could also use it to help their friends. Still, they had to remember the big picture. 

"We shouldn't focus our attacks in one area," Keith said, "or be too obvious about our purpose. If we're going for hit and run we need to scatter our attacks to confuse the enemy, not just attack the same sort of targets every time or they'll start to predict us." 

"True. We should pick most of our targets because they help our overall strategy, but we should attack some bases and outposts just to throw them off. Once we build up a large enough force, we can have simultaneous attacks, one which is focused on a main objective and others as distractions to make the Galran fleet divide their forces." 

Kolivan agreed, "We can also use your attacks as distractions to hide our activities, extracting information or conducting acts of sabotage while the focus is on battles with Voltron or rebel forces." 

They kept talking a while longer, with Shiro asking for more and more detail about the defences of particular sites. Kolivan didn't always have the level of detail Shiro wanted, but he could explain about standard practices and procedures which would at least let them know the sort of thing to expect. Keith had to hope that Kolivan really was on their side, because this information was amazingly valuable if true and nothing but worthless garbage if not. In fact, if Kolivan was lying, then following his advice about security principles was likely to get them killed. Keith wanted to believe. Kolivan seemed utterly sincere in these discussions, but still the nagging doubt remained. 

Shiro had moved on to talking about how they would maintain contact, especially given Kolivan's almost paranoid approach to secrecy, when an alarm blared through the base. Kolivan switched the table's display to a security display and Keith stared at the Galran warship and whole armada of fighters that had just materialised in the system.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some action. It's a shorter chapter, but I couldn't resist the cliffhanger. :)

Kolivan turned to Shiro, anger blazing in his eyes and said, "You contacted your friends while you were on your lion." 

"We did nothing of the sort," Shiro said. "You can't blame those ships on us." 

"We were safe here before you arrived. If you didn't send out a signal then Zarkon must have tracked you." 

"Or maybe he's been hunting down your group and figured out where you were based without us having anything to do with it." 

The two glared at each other across the table, fear at this sudden attack manifesting as anger. Whatever the reason, Keith had to stop this argument. They couldn't just let themselves get caught here. Whether Kolivan was on their side or had sold them out, they needed to get up there and fighting. 

Keith snapped, "Hey!" and both of them turned to him. "We need to get to our lions and get up there. We should contact the others and get them here too because your secrecy rules don't mean a damn thing anymore." 

"You're right," said Kolivan. "Go. I will send up what fighters I can to help you hold Zarkon off while we evacuate the base. You need to make sure that Zarkon's forces don't follow us. I'll give you the information of potential targets and coordinates to rendezvous if we make it out of here alive." He tapped something on his controls and a tiny chip shot out of the side of the table. He held this out to Keith. 

Moments later, Shiro and Keith were running from the conference room and back towards the hanger where their lions waited. Blade warriors were running down the hallways too, some in the same direction as them and some on other purposes. Keith ignored his ankle's protests as he sprinted to his lion and then strapped himself into the pilot's seat. He stowed his sword beside him. 

"Come on, Red," he said, "we've got work to do." 

A communication screen lit up with Kolivan's face, "The safe path between the star and the black holes is very narrow. Follow the fighters and then keep Zarkon's ships from that entry path." 

"Got it," Keith said, firing up Red's rockets. 

The fighters were launching, shooting out of the hanger through an opening in the roof and up into the sky. Keith told Red to track which fighters had come from here so he'd be able to distinguish ally from enemy when they got up there, and then his lion leapt into the air, flying up behind the Blade's fighters. He saw the trajectory Red calculated, based on the path taken by the fighters, and he saw what Kolivan meant. It wasn't one black hole in this system but two, with a large star between them, meaning that the gravitational forces were complex to navigate. With the debris spiralling into the black holes and solar flares from the star, it took all his concentration not to get smashed out of the sky. He couldn't quite believe that they'd come in this way safely while his lion had barely been functioning. 

There was no time to wonder about that now. Keith dodged around a chunk of asteroid and found himself in a miss of laser fire as Galran fighters tangled with the Blade's forces. Keith hit the controls to broadcast a signal to the castle even as he manoeuvred Red around a small spacecraft and started attacking with his own weapons. 

Keith had focus more of his energy on not getting hit himself than on targeting the enemy fighters, but there were enough of the bad guys that he could shoot wildly as he dodged and still stand a good chance of hitting something. He kept half an eye on Shiro's position and those of the Blade's fighters, but he was more concerned about the large warship that was charging up its weapons. 

"Shiro, look out!" 

Black barely dodged out of the way as a burst of energy shot from the warship, but one of the Blade's ships wasn't so lucky. 

"Keith, you've got a fighter six o'clock low." 

Keith threw Red into a spin, blasting the fighter to bits before it could fire, but another laser caught Red's leg and Keith's screen flashed up a warning from the rear booster rockets. 

There were just too many of the ships. No matter how good he was, he couldn't keep an eye on all of them at once. 

"Shiro? Keith?" Allura's voice sounded over the comms and Keith had rarely been so relieved to hear anyone. 

"We're here," said Shiro as Keith shot a burst of fire at a fighter that had been attempting to start down the route to the base. 

"It's good to hear from you," Allura said, "we were starting to worry when we couldn't pick up the signals from your lions. What happened to you?" 

"We're a little busy with a few hundred Galra fighters right now," Shiro said. "Story time can come later." 

The warship fired again, a blast of energy slicing across the battle and forcing Keith to dodge up and into the path of a fighter that exploded into the side of his lion. Red was thrown into a spin and was struck by more fire before Keith could get it under control again. 

"We're on our way," Allura said. 

"Hurry," Keith put in, piloting Red closer to the warship in the hope that that would give him some protection. The warship wouldn't be able to aim its main weapon at him if he was in close and the fighters probably wouldn't want to risk hitting their own ship. Skimming the edge of the ship brought him a moment to catch his breath and reassess the battle, but it wasn't a viable approach for long, especially since it meant he wasn't currently protecting the base, or the evacuation ship he could now see making its way out. 

Keith threw Red back into the fray, blasting fighters to clear a path for the evacuation ship. He didn't know what weapons, if any, that ship had, probably not much if it was designed to carry people and equipment to safety as quickly as possible. 

Shiro came up on the ship's other side, taking a burst of laser on his lion's armour to shield the escape craft. Keith twisted Red around so it took a similar burst on its more protected back, but warnings on the screens showed that the lion had still taken damage. Still, they'd bought enough time. The evacuation ship managed to build up enough speed and break away from the gravity well of the black holes before surging into hyperspace. Keith took down two Galra fighters that looked like they might have given chase, but by then another evacuation ship was rising up from the surface of the planet. 

Keith wondered how many more evacuation ships there were. They couldn't keep this up forever against this many enemy ships. For every fighter they destroyed, three more managed to land direct hits against the lions. Even with their armour and self-repair systems, the damage would be too much eventually. One of Red's boosters was already damaged, limiting Keith's manoeuvrability. Keith tried to get a read on how many of the Blade's fighters were still flying but either Red's sensors had lost track of which were which, or there weren't any of them left. All the fighters on his display showed up now as enemies. 

He wanted to take that as evidence that the Blade really were the good guys, but he wouldn't put it past Zarkon to have his own soldiers fight each other to the death just to play a trick on the Paladins. 

His dilemma could wait until he wasn't trying to keep from being blasted to smithereens. 

The warship charged up its main weapon again and the display flashed up the trajectory of the upcoming shot. 

"We have to disable that weapon," Keith said. 

"Jawblade," Shiro said. 

The two lions flew straight at the ship's main weapon and Keith fired up the command for the energy knife to appear in his lion's mouth. Keith followed Shiro's lead and went for the structure holding the main weapon in place, each of them slicing through metal and supports. It wasn't enough to disable the main weapon but Shiro charged Black right into the side of the weapon as it fired, knocking the beam of energy off course by just enough to miss the evacuation ship. 

Of course, focusing on the warship meant that the fighters had had free reign over the evacuation ship. Even now, a trio of them were firing their lasers at the craft's engines. Keith swore and shifting his weapons back, swinging Red back around to shoot fire at the nearest of the fighters. 

He was just wondering how the hell they were supposed to survive this much longer when a wormhole opened in a burst of blue light and there was the Castle of Lions, with the other three lions of Voltron charging into the battle. 

"I've never been so glad to see you guys," Keith said. 

Shiro was all business, "Allura, target the warship's main weapon. Everyone else, protect the evacuation ships." 

"Shouldn't we form Voltron?" Hunk asked. 

"There's no time." 

If they stopped to form Voltron, they wouldn't be able to fight for about a minute and that would be all it took for Zarkon's forces to destroy at least one of the evacuation ships and kill however many people were inside. 

At least with five of the lions, they could properly surrounded the evacuees and take out the fighters. Hunk used his yellow lion as a shield, blocking laser fire, while Keith and Lance dodged about, using fire and ice to take down the enemy ships. It wasn't easy, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it seemed considerably less impossible a task than when it had just been him and Shiro. 

The ranks of enemy fighters were thinning out now, and Keith took Lance back to the warship to attack the main weapon again. Between the weapons fire from the castle and the two lions blasting the thing from either side, they were able to knock the weapon out of commission, at least for now. No doubt the Galra inside that ship would be working hard to get it back up and running, but it bought them some time. 

Keith finally believed that they were winning when he heard Shiro cry out in pain over the comms.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this chapter for some minor self-harm.

"Shiro!" Keith called, but there was no answer, just more cries of pain. 

The black lion seemed to have stopped, frozen in space despite the enemies around it. Pidge left her place by the evacuating ships to go to Shiro's defence while Keith and Lance rushed back to help. 

"What's happening?" Allura asked over comms. 

"It's... Zarkon..." Shiro's words were strained, as though it was a battle to get them out. "He's fighting... for control." 

They'd seen this before, with Zarkon actually taking control of the lion away from Shiro. That meant that Zarkon was on the warship. Keith didn't know why he hadn't tried this sooner, perhaps it took a lot of effort for Zarkon to seize control of the lion. All he knew was that they were in trouble. 

"We have to get Shiro out of here," Keith said. He felt torn, wanting to help the Blade of Marmora, but he'd already made the wrong choice about this once recently. He had to prioritise Voltron. He charged Red towards the black lion. 

On the little planetoid orbiting the blue star, something exploded, violent eruptions tore through rock and metal, shattering the base into fragments that would be swept up in the gravity of one cosmic body or another. One final ship raced along the safe path away from what had once been the Blade of Marmora's base. 

Keith's comm lit up with an incoming message, and Kolivan's face appeared on the screen, masked and cowled once again. "We're out. Get to safety. We will meet again, Keith." 

As that final ship sped away, Keith had Red clamp its jaws around the black lion's leg. 

"Allura, open a wormhole," Keith instructed. He fired up Red's thrusters to tow Shiro away from the battle. If neither Shiro nor Zarkon were in control right now, the lion wouldn't fight back against him too. Lance quickly saw want he was doing and soon Blue had hold of another leg while the other lions covered their escape. Keith poured every bit of power Red had left into accelerating towards the opening portal and soon they were through, disappearing into the wormhole along with the others. 

"It's OK," Shiro said after a few moments. "I've got control back." 

The Red and Blue lions immediately let go of their leader's legs. 

"So what the hell was going on back there?" Lance asked. "Who were those guys we were helping escape?" 

"Yeah, and why did you disappear for days?" asked Pidge. "We couldn't pick you up on the scanners at all." 

"It's a long story," Shiro said. "Let's get back on board the castle and we'll tell you all about it. Over dinner. I'm in desperate need of a meal that doesn't taste of cardboard." 

"You've got it," Coran said. "I'll whip you up a nice, tasty meal suitable for a Paladin that will have you ready to face a hoard of rampaging knalmuirl." 

"How about Hunk cooks?" Shiro suggested. An Altean's tastes were very different from a human's, as they'd learned. 

"A meal sounds good," said Keith, "but personally I'm in desperate need of a bath." He hadn't had a real chance to wash away the sweat and grime of his tests. He'd wiped off the worst of the blood, but a proper bath was a luxury he craved. If someone tested him with a choice between his knife and a hot bath, he wouldn't even hesitate. 

Manoeuvring in a wormhole was a challenge, but one that Keith thought was worth it if it meant he could get onto the castle sooner. He didn't want to have to wait until they were back in normal space. He carefully guided Red into his hanger and then climbed down from the lion, taking his sword with him. 

As soon as he emerged into the castle, Hunk was there to greet him with a crushing hug. Lance just sniffed and said, "Wow, you really do need a bath." 

"Missed you too," Keith said. 

Pidge had other priorities. Her eyes fell on the sword Keith was gripping tightly. "Where did that come from?" 

Keith wasn't sure how to explain that it had been a knife a few days ago, because admitting that he'd awoken the blade would mean admitting that he had enough Galra DNA to activate the technology within it. 

"I think you'd better give me the sword," Shiro said, walking over. His voice was calm but serious, using his commander's tone that let everyone know he wouldn't accept an argument. 

"But it's mine," Keith said. It had been his when it had just been a knife and it was his now it was a sword. He'd had it all his life and he'd gone through hell back there to earn the right to keep it. He'd fought and bled and nearly died to claim the right this blade. 

"Keith, give me the sword." Shiro held out his hand. Keith knew it shouldn't matter, not after what he'd decided during the tests. He was a Paladin and that mattered more than any claim on this sword, still he hesitated. 

"What's going on?" Hunk asked. 

"Keith," said Shiro, "are you sure you're thinking things through properly?" 

That question was a code, part of the series of phrases they'd worked out to communicate when they thought they might be overheard back on the base. It was the signal Shiro was to give if he thought Keith was acting under the influence of brainwashing. 

The sword clattered to the ground and Keith stumbled away from it, feeling like he needed to throw up. The light on the handle faded to a dull purple now that his hand wasn't on the hilt anymore. Had any of what he'd just been thinking been real? He knew that the knife wasn't a threat, that he'd had it since childhood. He _knew_ it. But if Shiro thought it was dangerous for Keith to have the sword then he would have to trust that. 

"Thank you, Keith," Shiro said, picking up the sword. He held it out to Pidge. "Put this in a containment unit." 

"Is anyone else really confused about what's going on here?" Hunk asked. 

"Uh, yeah," said Lance. "Seriously, guys, what's going on?" 

"I might be compromised," Keith said. 

"We don't know for sure, but we have reason to suspect that someone may have been influencing Keith's thoughts. We need to all keep an eye on him in case of suspicious behaviour, at least until we know for sure." 

"So does this mean you're going to go nuts and try to crash the castle into a star or something like Allura did?" asked Hunk. 

"Right now, all I'm going to do is have a bath and get some sleep. Shiro can fill you in on the details of what happened." 

Keith walked out of there, unable to face the stares of his friends for even a minute more. Rationally, he knew that they had to be told, it was the only way for them to be safe, but still he hated the thought of how they all looked at him, like he was a sudden stranger. How much worse would it be if they knew the truth? If they discovered that he was a Galra, one of the enemy? He couldn't face that either. Shiro already thought he was a threat to them or he wouldn't have insisted on taking the sword. 

Keith went to the living quarters, to the large bathroom at the end of the hallway that all the Paladins shared. He shut himself inside and started filling the tub with water as he started to strip off his armour. Somewhere along the way, his ankle had started throbbing again and now his shoulder ached as he removed the torso piece. He'd been able to ignore the pain in the heat of battle but it came back now along with a thousand muscle aches from the tension that had filled him during the fight. 

He slipped into the tub, feeling the water sting a little against his cuts, and then he just lay there, letting the hot water ease his muscles. He wished it were so simple to ease his mind. He couldn't trust his thoughts. He thought he was still himself, still thinking like normal, but if his mind was corrupted he'd be the last person to know. Could he even continue as a Paladin if he couldn't trust the contents of his own brain? This whole team was built on trust, Voltron was formed by them working together. Right now, he was a piece that didn't fit. 

After a few minutes of lying there in a pool of despair, Keith started scrubbing. He grabbed a cloth and washed away the dirt that clung to his skin. He wiped away the crusted blood from the wound at his shoulder. Then he stared at it, at the red line that crossed his skin. His blood was normal, human blood, as red as anyone else's. He couldn't be Galra, not if he bled as a human. 

He pulled himself from the bath and crossed to the cabinet of bathing supplies, digging inside until he found a razor. The Alteans had grooming devices that did the job efficiently, but Hunk apparently preferred to shave in a more traditional way with an actual razor, so there was a supply here for him. Keith took one of the blade and returned to the bath, sitting down on the side rather than climbing into the water that was now extremely murky. Keith held his arm out over the water and sliced the razor against his skin. It was a shallow nick, barely a centimetre in length, but it was enough to cause a little drop of blood to well up and drip down into the bath water. 

Red. He still bled red. Real, human blood. 

He was still human. Whatever anyone else might have to say about it. 

He slipped the razor blade into his pocket as he got dressed, just in case he needed another reminder.


	9. Chapter 9

Keith rejoined the others in the dining room, hearing Shiro and Allura arguing long before he got there. It was pretty obvious that Allura was not willing to consider the possibility that the Blade of Marmora might be on their side. 

"Their fighters went into battle beside us," Shiro was saying, "and were destroyed, killing the pilots inside." 

"That could have been a ploy," Allura objected. "Zarkon would not hesitate to sacrifice his own people if he thought it would give him an advantage." 

"But Zarkon's ship was targeting their evacuation." 

"All part of the same plot." 

"What about the information they provided? We should at least see if it matches up to our data. If it's accurate, then they've given us intelligence on good targets to weaken Zarkon's resource base." 

"Or they've given us targets so that Zarkon knows where we'll hit and can be waiting to destroy us." 

Keith slipped into the room and found a seat at the table between the rest of the Paladins. The argument stilled for a bit as Keith sat down. 

"Any food left?" he asked. 

"Yeah," said Hunk, "Shiro was too busy arguing to eat anything." He sounded a little hurt by that and passed a plate of what looked like flowers and mud over to Keith. Keith was learning not to pay attention to what his food looked like, so he just grabbed a fork and dove in. 

"I take it Shiro's filled you in on everything?" Keith asked. 

"Yeah. Either we've got allies against the Galra or you're a brainwashed double agent," said Hunk, tactful as always. Keith couldn't argue with that assessment. 

Pidge said, "It's actually interesting that you suspect your thoughts have been altered and that's actually evidence in favour of there not being tampering." 

"I'm not sure I follow." 

"Well, if these people have the ability to influence your thoughts, then a logical precaution against detection would be to influence your thoughts to not notice the influence. Since you were the one who was first worried about the idea, that's actually a good sign that it's not happening." 

Her words were as comforting as the drops of red blood had been but it still wasn't enough. 

"But you can't know for sure?" he asked. 

"Well, no, I don't see how we could know for certain, not without a detailed scan of your brain activity over time as a benchmark against which we can compare your current brain activity to look for any anomalies." 

"And of course we don't have that." 

"Not unless the castle's been performing secret and invasive medical scans on us since we got here." She looked suddenly nervous and turned to Allura. "It hasn't, has it?" Allura shook her head. 

"So we're stuck with not knowing for sure if you can trust me," Keith said. 

"Why can't we just stick him in the healing pod and let that fix him?" asked Lance. 

"That would only work if there's damage to Keith's brain," Pidge explained. "If these aliens altered his neural connections, the pod might not pick that up as damage and so wouldn't do anything to fix it." 

"It's worth a try though," said Keith. Plus, he could do with a stint in the pod anyway, to deal with the remains of the injuries that Ondain hadn't had time to fix properly. 

"In the meantime," said Shiro, "we should analyse the data Kolivan gave us and compare it to our own data, to see how accurate it is. If they've given us false data, we'll have our answer. If it's accurate then we can plan an attack against one of the target sites." 

"Which could be exactly what Zarkon wants," said Allura. "This Kolivan person could have given you accurate location precisely knowing that you'd trust it and walk right into a trap." 

"We'll have a plan to get out of there if it turns out to be a trap," Shiro said, "and Kolivan gave us hundreds of possible targets. Zarkon couldn't possibly set a trap at every one of them." 

"We can never trust a Galra," Allura said. 

Keith's hand clenched tighter around his fork. There was another way to test out whether or not Kolivan had been lying to them. He needed to analyse his DNA. If he was completely human, then Kolivan was lying, but if Keith really was part Galra then surely that meant not all Galra were evil. He wasn't. Was he? 

But how could he test his DNA? He didn't know enough about the scientific equipment on this ship to know what to use or how to operate it. The only person who could help him was probably Pidge. Well, Coran or Allura would know what equipment to use, but they'd probably lock him in a cell or throw him out an airlock if they thought he was Galra. They certainly wouldn't let him keep piloting Red. Pidge might be persuaded to keep this a secret. She understood the importance of secrets. 

But right now? With him already under suspicion as an enemy agent? As soon as he told her he had something he wanted her to hide, he'd look even more suspicious and she'd go right to Shiro. No, he needed to figure out a way to do the test on himself and that meant getting information out of Pidge without her figuring out what he was looking for. 

"Are you OK over there?" Hunk asked. Keith jolted out of his thoughts. 

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Just tired. The healing pod thing might not be a bad idea. Can someone come shut me in one?" 

He tried to act casual as Coran agreed, but Allura looked extremely uncomfortable as the two of them walked off together. 

"I'll accompany you," she said. Presumably she didn't trust him not to hurt Coran as soon as they were alone together. Keith accepted the extra guard even as he cringed inside for what this would mean if she found out he really was Galra. He needed to know. 

"Allura," Keith said, "Pidge suggested a medical scan. Is there something on this castle that would do that?" 

"The healing pods perform scans to identify areas of damage," she said, "but that data is all retained within the pod. Medical data is considered very personal and so it isn't made generally visible to those operating the pods." 

So the pod wouldn't tell them one way or the other if he was Galra. 

"But what about scientific equipment?" he asked. "Pidge could do analysis of samples, right? Could that be used?" 

"The containment units and analysis equipment is designed for scientific samples which are small in size. It would be possible to perform an analysis of a cellular sample but not a full body scan. Besides, Pidge was right, we could need information about your mind's normal state in order to compare the difference." 

But it would be enough to check his DNA, especially if he could get a sample from one of the others. He hoped. Biology hadn't been his best subject but he knew that every person's DNA was unique unless they were identical twins or something like that, so his DNA would show differences from the others' even if he was completely human. Would he be different enough that he'd be able to tell? Or would he need to get samples from all the other humans on the castle to be sure whether any differences were alien and not just the result of having different parents? 

Maybe he should tell Pidge. Biology wasn't her thing either, but she would probably have a better grasp of it than him. She could analyse alien languages and build translators that worked well enough for her to navigate Galra computer systems, so surely his DNA couldn't be harder to figure out than that. He could tell her that he thought the Blade of Marmora had done something to him, but then they would see any Galra DNA as more evidence that he was a double agent rather than as a sign they'd been telling him the truth. 

They reached the bridge of the castle and Allura pressed a few buttons on one of the consoles to bring a healing pod up out of the floor. She kept half an eye on Keith as she did so, as though she expected him to start destroying the equipment or something. He would have thought she'd have a little more sympathy with his situation since she had been the one to nearly destroy the ship with all of them on it when her mind had come under external influence. Although maybe that was why she was so suspicious of him, because she knew what damage a person could do despite all the good intentions in the universe when they were being manipulated. 

Keith stepped into the pod and let it close around him, sinking into the healing sleep. 

***

When Keith emerged from the pod, Lance and Hunk were waiting for him. His mind felt the same as when he'd gone in, but the rest of him felt a hell of a lot better. His ankle and shoulder were as good as new, his bruising was gone, and aches he didn't even remember noticing because they were less severe than other pains had all vanished. 

"How are you feeling?" Hunk asked. 

"Good as new." 

"You're not feeling like going on a rampage and killing us all?" 

"Not right now. Where's everyone else?" 

"Planning out our next move," said Lance. He glanced at Hunk, "We were told to keep you away from the planning so that you don't know which target we're going for." 

"You know," Hunk added, "just in case you're a spy for the Galra." 

"OK. I'll just go to the training room or something." 

Hunk and Lance followed him from the bridge and it didn't take long for it to become obvious that they intended to follow him all the way to the training room. The Paladins really didn't trust him right now. His plan to slip into Pidge's lab and try to find something he could use as a DNA scanner was clearly not going to work, so he might as well put the time to good use. He'd learned over the past few days that he could do with more practice fighting multiple opponents at once. 

"Fine," he said, "if you're coming to the training room with me, you can spar with me." 

They dressed in their armour and Keith picked up his bayard, transforming it into its sword shape while the other two took out the long rods that were used as training weapons. Their bayards were both guns, so it wasn't like they could spar with them. Hunk looked doubtful as he looked at the rod in his hands. 

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather fight the robot?" he asked. "What if this is some plot to disable us so you can sneak off and do evil spy stuff?" 

"If you'd prefer, I can just spar with Lance, but it wouldn't be as much of a challenge." 

"Hey!" Lance protested. "I can totally kick your ass!" 

Keith smirked and raised his sword, "Prove it." 

He went easy on them, using this as a chance to practice against multiple foes. If this had been a real fight, he'd have taken one of them down as quickly as possible so that he'd only have one opponent, but right now he wanted the two of them up and attacking him. He focused on defensive moves and did his best to dodge out of the way, shifting his position so that Hunk and Lance got in each others' way. When they tried to attack him from two sides at once, he ducked and evaded and spun round one of them to block the other. In was good exercise but tiring. It seemed he wasn't the only one who thought so. 

"OK," Hunk panted after perhaps twenty minutes of this, "I need a breather." 

Keith was feeling a little tired too, since he'd been doing a lot more dodging than the other two, so he agreed that they should take a water break. 

"Well I'm good to go," Lance said. "I told you I could kick your ass." 

Keith brought his sword up against Lance's training rod in a circular motion that twisting the rod out of Lance's hands. While Lance was still reeling from that, Keith stepped in, hooked a leg around the back of Lance's knees and shoved Lance in the chest with his free hand. Lance tripped backwards over Keith's leg and hit the ground with a thump, disarmed and knocked down in about half a second. 

"You were saying?" Keith smirked down at him. 

"I wasn't ready!" Lance complained. 

"That was kinda sneaky and evil," Hunk said. "Maybe you really are a spy." 

Keith grabbed a water container from the dispenser at the edge of the room and swallowed its contents down in one go. 

"I would have done that before this mess with the Blade of Marmora," Keith said. But would he? Or did he only think he would have done because he'd been brainwashed? 

Fortunately, Lance said, "Yeah. You've always been a jerk." 

Keith had never in his life been so glad to be insulted. 

They sparred a little longer until Hunk declared that he was done for the day and they headed off to the kitchen so that Hunk could bake something and Keith could eat. The healing pods may have fixed his body, but he was now feeling famished. Lance stuck with them, determined to keep an eye on Keith. His plan to test his DNA was probably doomed to failure unless he could get away from his watchdogs, but maybe he could get them to switch. If he could end up with just Pidge watching him they could go to her lab and then he could look for something to help him while she got distracted by her gizmos. 

"So, is there a schedule for who watches me when?" Keith asked, digging into a bowl of the standard green goo while Hunk made something that would hopefully be more appetising. 

"We're just going to take turns," Lance said, "but Pidge is helping Coran with some repairs and Shiro is up to his neck in strategy." 

Keith finished up his bowl of goo just as Hunk was putting a tray of some blue disks that bore only a passing resemblance to cookies into the oven. No cookie should be bright blue and semi-transparent. Keith really didn't want to be here when the time came to test those things. 

"I don't want to hang around in the kitchen all day," Keith said, "and I'm sick of kicking your ass." 

"Hey!" Lance protested. 

"Why don't I go help out Pidge and Coran? Then they can watch me and you can both do whatever you want to do." 

"I guess that could work," Lance said. So Keith and Lance left Hunk to his baking and went down to the engine room. This wasn't what Keith had wanted, he'd really hoped they'd be working in one of the labs, but if he changed his mind now it would look suspicious. He would just go along and try to be helpful until they let their guard down enough for him to do what he needed to do. 

So he spent the next few hours holding things and fetching things while Coran and Pidge did things he didn't understand to the engines. Coran didn't let Keith touch anything, which was probably for the best as he had no idea what half of the controls did and he could probably blow up the castle by accident. He was bored out of his mind while Pidge raved about the elegance of Altean technology. He was alright with some engineering knowledge, since even on the pilot track at the Garrison, he'd been expected to understand the basics, but that didn't prepare him for how to deal with the technology for creating wormholes, especially when Coran started throwing around terms that Keith half-suspected he was inventing just to mess with him. 

He got the point that they were out of spares of some component that was critical for wormhole jumps and Coran was really worried that the strain on the ones that they had would make more break. Keith just watched the discussions without contributing anything useful. 

He was almost relieved when an alarm went off. 

"Paladins, to your lions!" Allura's voice called on. Keith set off towards Red at a run.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of blood and some (mostly accidental) self-harm.

Zarkon was definitely tracking them. They'd just defeated one of Zarkon's robotic creations and used a portal to get away when a warship showed up, poised for another fight. They'd managed to get away from that, using Hunk's cookies as spare parts, when another of the robeasts turned up for a fight. Pidge had been doing something to shield the ship from all normal methods of tracking and Zarkon was still finding them. 

Keith emerged from his lion after yet another tough battle, exhausted and famished, only to meet the suspicious stares of his teammates. It was hardly surprising, but he knew he hadn't done anything. He couldn't have done anything, not when he'd been watched since they'd reunited. Still, they all stood in the hanger and every pair of eyes was on him, filled with concern. 

"He's not finding us because of me," Keith said, before anyone could voice their accusations out loud. 

"He's finding us somehow," Shiro said. 

"I've not had the opportunity to send a message or anything. You've been watching me." 

"You were alone when we first got back." 

"I took a bath. And even if I had sent a signal, which I didn't, it wouldn't explain how he keeps finding us after we've moved." Keith didn't have any gaps in his memory. If he had time unaccounted for it might justify the way his friends were looking at him now, but he was confident that he hadn't done anything to jeopardise the safety of the castle. 

"It might not be something you're doing," Pidge said, "it might be something you brought on board." 

"The sword," said Shiro. 

"It can't be the sword," Keith said, instantly defensive. His tone appeared to deepen everyone's suspicion, judging by the frowns aimed in his direction. 

"You didn't want to give it up," Shiro said. 

"That doesn't mean Zarkon's tracking it." 

"Let's dump the sword out an airlock," Lance suggested. 

"No!" That sword was part of his past, a memory of his family. He knew it wasn't worth his life or the lives of his friends', but he didn't see the point of throwing it away when he was confident that the sword had nothing to do with this. The way everyone was looking at him though made it clear that the more he argued, the more confidence they would be that the sword was the key to all this. 

He considered his options and said, "Put it in a pod. We leave it somewhere we can come back and find it again later. If Zarkon tracks the pod, then we'll know it's the sword. If he tracks us even without the sword, we'll know he's finding us some other way." 

"Why is the sword so important to you?" Shiro asked. 

"They put me through hell to let me keep it. I don't want to throw it away when I'm sure that there's no way Zarkon is finding us through it." But what if Zarkon was tracking him? What if he was somehow locked onto Keith's Galran DNA? 

"Separating the variables makes sense," Pidge said. "We'll be able to find out for sure if it's the sword." 

So it was agreed and Pidge went to the lab to fetch it. Keith waited in the hanger, surrounded by the others, feeling the painful silence as they watched his reactions. He knew he hadn't sent any messages to alert the enemy to their location, not consciously, but if he was the only part-human, part-Galra in the galaxy, Zarkon might be able to track him that way. If Zarkon found them without the sword, maybe next time he should get in a pod himself. Test out that variable. 

After a minute, Pidge came into the hanger, holding a large containment unit, but with a very puzzled look on her face. 

"Something's happened to the sword," she said, holding the containment unit up for them all to see. Suspended in the middle of the glass cylinder was not a sword, but a knife. Keith's sword was back in its more familiar form. He probably should have expected this. After all, if the sword had been awakened by his Galran DNA, there was probably some mechanism by which it went dormant again if it wasn't in regular contact with a Galran, or part Galran. 

"Isn't that your knife?" Hunk said, peering through the glass. "Yeah. That's the knife you always carried." 

There was no point denying it, no way forward except to admit at least this part of the truth. 

"I told you," Keith said, "it's mine. It's the knife I brought with me from Earth. That's why I didn't want to give it up. It was transformed into the sword when I passed the tests." 

"Matter transformation?" Pidge asked. "That's really cool. I mean, they're nothing like the same mass, so where does the sword get the extra mass from? Or is the knife form somehow displacing the mass into another dimension so it's not measurable in the three dimensional universe?" She was looking at Keith with excitement now, which made a nice change, but it left him no clearer on how to go from here. 

"I have no idea," Keith said. "It just kind of lit up and grew. I didn't realise it would change back." 

"No matter," Shiro said, "it's still possible the Blade of Marmora did something to it to make it easy to detect. We should go ahead with the plan and see if Zarkon tracks it." 

Shiro and Pidge went to do that, and rig up a signal so that they would know if Zarkon or another robeast showed up by the pod. Keith went to bed. Unfortunately, the others were definitely not keen on leaving him alone right now, with all the attacks that they'd suffered. Hunk grabbed some blankets and cushions and set up camp outside Keith's room. He still got the privacy of having his room to himself, on the grounds that there was very little damage Keith could do while shut inside his bedroom. Lance got out of the guard duty because he insisted he needed his beauty sleep. 

Keith lay down in his bed and tried to calm his mind enough to sleep, but his thoughts still whirled. Zarkon was tracking them somehow and he needed to know if he was the one bringing danger to his friends. There were more pods on the castle. He could do what they were doing with the sword and jump in one of those. But if he was wrong and Zarkon was tracking the castle then that would leave the team unable to form Voltron. Either way, there was risk. 

He thought of his earlier plan, to do a DNA test. This was the closest he'd got to being alone in a while and probably would be the closest he'd get for some time to come. Was it possible for him to get out of this room without being spotted? He hadn't thoroughly checked his room for escape routes, but he did so now, checking the ventilation system and searching for panels and quickly deciding that nothing smaller than a mouse was going to get out of here without opening the door. 

He flopped back down on his bed again, mind still working rapidly. What if he was being too complicated about this? He was trying to find a way out without going through the door, but what he really needed was a way to get out without being seen by Hunk who was on guard. That might not require any special action on his part at all. Hunk had a habit of falling asleep at odd places and at times when he really should be awake. He'd been making himself pretty comfortable with those pillows and they were all exhausted right now. Keith might be able to sneak out of here without anyone being any the wiser. 

If he was wrong and Hunk was awake, he could just claim he needed the bathroom. 

He waited a little longer, wanting to give Hunk more chance of falling asleep, but he couldn't wait too long or Shiro or someone might come along to replace Hunk on guard duty. He paced anxiously until he decided that he was going to drive himself crazy if he waited much longer. He pulled off his boots, went over to the door and touched the panel to open it. 

Hunk's snores were a beautiful music to his ears. The yellow Paladin was curled up on the hallway floor, wrapped in his nest of pillows and blankets. Keith crept from his room and let the door slide shut behind him. He edged down the hallway holding his boots in one hand. Hunk didn't even stir. 

Keith reached the end of the hallway and then broke into a run, still holding his boots so he didn't make too much noise. There was no sign of anyone else as he raced down to the lab. The large room was dark and silent with only the blinking lights of the various machines giving it illumination. Keith walked slowly around the room, wondering not for the first time how the hell Pidge managed to figure out her way around Altean technology. Presumably a lot of it was by trial and error because there were a lot of notes stuck to the machines and switches. Some offered translations of what the controls did, while one just said 'DO NOT PRESS' in very large letters above a particular button. Keith was suddenly very curious what that button did, but he had a mission to complete. He peered at notes until he found one labelling a machine as an organic matter analyser. Perfect. 

Keith pressed a few buttons until he figured out which one turned it on and then a little compartment slid out of the side. He assumed this was where the sample was supposed to go, but the writing on the machine's screen was all in Altean which might as well have been gibberish. He reached into his pocket for the razor blade he'd put there earlier, careful not to cut his hand in the process. Instead, he made a tiny incision on the back of his forearm and held it over the compartment, letting a couple of drops fall inside. He hoped that would be enough. 

"Keith?" 

Pidge's voice startled him and he jumped, the razor blade catching his arm and slicing a jagged line through his skin. 

"Damn it!" Keith dropped the blade and pressed his hand over the cut as the blood welled up. He looked around for something he could use to stop the bleeding. 

"What's going on?" Pidge demanded. "Where's Hunk?" Her tone was somewhere between a question and an accusation but still she opened up a drawer and pulled out a wad of spongy material that she offered to Keith. He pressed it over the cut and found that the material adhered to his arm on contact. He released his hold, 

"Where's Hunk?" Pidge asked again. "He was supposed to be watching you." 

"He's asleep outside my room. I didn't want to wake him up." 

"Even though you knew we wanted to watch you? What were you up to in here? Why they hell were you cutting yourself open?" 

She'd caught him literally red-handed next to the organic matter analyser. There was no way he could think of a lie that would fool her, Besides, if he was right, she would only have to look at the results on the machine to figure it out. It was time to come clean and face the consequences, face the stares and suspicion that he was just beginning to expect. 

"I wanted to do a DNA analysis on myself," Keith said. 

"What? Why? Do you think the Blade guys messed with your DNA?" 

"No, but they... they said they found something unusual about it. I wasn't sure if I believed them or if it was just another way for them to mess with my head. I wanted to do an analysis to find out and see if they were telling the truth. If they were telling the truth about that, then maybe they were telling the truth about the rest of it. If not, then at least we know they can't be trusted." 

"What kind of unusual something?" 

The words froze on Keith's tongue, unwilling to emerge from his mouth. He was still scared to admit what might be true. 

"Just, can you do the analysis?" he asked. "See if you find anything strange?" 

"OK. You don't want me to have any preconceptions. I can work with that. Biology's not my speciality but I can see what I can do." 

"It's not mine either. I just figured I could put a few drops of blood in this thing and it would spit out an answer." 

"You should have just used a cheek swab. No need to cut yourself. In fact, red blood cells don't have nuclei so they don't contain DNA." 

"I didn't realise that. I guess this is why I only got a D in biology," Keith said. 

"We can still work with it. Your white blood cells should have DNA we can look at." 

Pidge went to the machine and set to work, while Keith waited nervously, looking over her shoulder at the screen. Something came up on the display, a model that he recognised despite his biology marks as the double helix, with a few areas highlighted. 

"What the hell?" Pidge said. She leaned closer to the screen. 

"You found something?" Keith's heart was pounding, his mouth dry. He wanted to run and hide and pretend that this wasn't happening, but he needed to know. He couldn't go on with the uncertainty. 

"You have six different chemical bases in your nucleotides!" 

"D in biology, remember," Keith said, "you're going to need to explain the significance." 

"There are only four chemical bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. Our DNA is made of these four chemicals stuck together in pairs and arranged in a sequence. There are only four! At least on Earth. Every single organism on Earth has the same four bases in their DNA. Humans, monkeys, potatoes, shrimp, everything. You have six! A small fraction of the base pairs in your DNA are made up of chemicals that just don't occur on Earth. This shouldn't be possible!" 

Pidge seemed too excited by the scientific discovery to freak out about the implication, but Keith was freaking out plenty enough for both of them. This meant that Kolivan and Ondain had been telling the truth. Keith wasn't entirely human. It meant that they were more likely to have been telling the truth about the rest of it too, about the Blade working against Zarkon, but it didn't change the fact that Keith had something alien buried inside him. He wasn't the person he'd always thought he was. 

"It can't have happened naturally," Pidge continued. "I mean, two species of finches from different islands can't interbreed, and they're genetically incredibly similar. Science fiction aside, having a natural child between species from different planets would be impossible, but on Earth we've made developments around genetic engineering by taking genes from one organism and splicing them into another. There's no reason why that shouldn't be extrapolated to allow alien and human genes to be spliced by someone with sufficient technology and the knowledge of what would be viable." 

"Do you know if I was the one genetically engineered," Keith asked, "or could it have been one of my parents and I just inherited the DNA?" 

"Honestly, I don't know. I would guess probably you, but I don't know enough about how someone could have made this work. I'm just going to compare these readings to the database to see if the computer can identify which planet the other DNA bases originate from." 

Panic rose up in Keith. She was excited now but that was bound to change. 

"No, you don't have to..." His words stopped as an image appeared on the screen, a picture of an unmistakably Galran face. 

Pidge's excited grin vanished, replaced by a look of utter shock and... was that fear in her eyes? She turned slowly to stare at Keith as he backed away, the panic threatening to overwhelm him. She knew. She knew what he was and she was scared of him. All his friends would be scared of him. They'd hate him. He was part Galra and now Pidge knew it, and worse she knew that he'd come down here on his own, that he'd tried to hide this from them. 

"You're Galra," Pidge said. 

Keith fled.


	11. Chapter 11

Keith didn't really know where he was running to. He pelted down the corridor, only caring that he got away from Pidge, away from the fear in her eyes. But there was nowhere on the castle that he could hide, no way he could escape from their hatred. They would never trust him now, never trust him again enough to form Voltron. He needed to leave here. 

He reached the pod bay, skidding to a stop in front of one of the small craft, realising only as his feet slipped on the smooth floor that he was wearing only socks on his feet. His boots were still back in the lab. 

He could survive without boots. 

He climbed into the pod and fired up the engines, closing the canopy over the cockpit and pressing the controls to open the airlock. The airlock stayed closed. 

He pressed the controls again, wondering if his fingers had slipped and missed the button. His hands were shaking enough that it was possible. The airlock stayed shut. 

His heart was thundering in his chest, breath coming in panicked gasps and it felt like the world was closing in around him, darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision. He was trapped. He felt like there wasn't enough air in this pod for him to breathe properly. He need to escape, needed to get out of here. He was a danger to his friends. He'd seen that in Pidge's eyes, seen the way she'd looked at him. That fear filled him too, fear of what this might mean, for them and for him. 

"Keith," Coran's voice came over the comm, "we've disabled the airlock controls. Shut down the pod. There's nowhere you can go." 

For a moment he considered just flying the pod straight at the airlock and seeing which broke first, the airlock doors or him, but that was a stupid idea and it was likely to damage the castle more than it already was. That could put his friends in danger. Coran had trapped him here. What had Pidge told him? What had she told all of them? 

"Keith?" This voice came from outside the pod as Shiro walked slowly into the bay. He was in his full armour, ready for a fight. Keith's shaking breaths turned to sobs, the sight of Shiro blurring as tears filled his eyes. Shiro. His friend, his brother, had come to find him like he was an enemy intruder on this castle. 

There was nowhere to run. No escape from the fact that he was the enemy now. 

Hands still shaking, Keith powered down the pod and let the canopy fade away. Shiro took a few steps closer, keeping his distance as one would from a dangerous animal. 

"Keith, come out of there and let's talk," Shiro said. His voice was calm and quiet, but there was caution in it too. It wasn't hatred but it wasn't far from fear either. Keith closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the wetness down his cheeks as more tears squeezed out, but then he climbed out of the pod. Surrender was his only option. He couldn't run and there was no way in hell he was going to fight, so all he could do was face whatever his friends did to him. 

"Keith, what's going on?" Shiro asked. "Is... is that blood?" His eyes fell on Keith's hand, stained with red from where Keith had tried to stop his cut's bleeding earlier. There was definite fear in Shiro's voice as he asked, "Whose blood is it?" 

Shiro thought that Keith had hurt one of the other Paladins. It was like Pidge asking where Hunk was, already worried that Keith had hurt him somehow even before she knew the secret that his blood held. 

"It's mine," Keith said. "I cut myself. By accident." 

"Are you badly hurt?" 

The question caught Keith off guard. Shiro actually sounded concerned for him, worried about him. He'd expected Shiro to want to fight him or capture him, not to care that he was hurt. 

"Why does it matter?" Keith asked. 

"Of course it matters." 

Shiro took a few steps forward, closing the distance between them. 

"But I'm your enemy," Keith said. The words croaked out as the sobs started again, shaking his body. He couldn't hold back the tears. These people were the only family he had left, Shiro had been his brother for years. He had no one and nothing when they turned against him and they would, because he was one of the people who was destroying everything good in the universe. 

"You're not an enemy," Shiro said. "If the Blade did something to you, that's not your fault. It doesn't make you our enemy." 

"You don't understand. Ask Pidge. She'll... she knows." 

There were footsteps behind Shiro, light sounds as someone small approached. 

"You're not our enemy," Pidge said, approaching slowly. 

Keith shook his head, staring at her, "You saw. You saw what I am." 

"What is he talking about?" Shiro asked Pidge. 

"Keith asked me to do a DNA test. He has some non-human DNA in his genetic code." 

Non-human. She didn't admit it out loud, even though she knew exactly which species that genetic material came from. She knew how the others would react if they knew the truth. 

"What?" Shiro looked between the two of them, confused. "How?" 

"It's Galra DNA," Keith admitted. "I'm Galra." 

He stared at the floor, not daring to look Shiro in the eye and see what his reaction would be. He didn't want to see Shiro's concern turn to hate. He waited. Waited for Shiro to power up his arm and launched into an attack. Shiro had lost so much to the Galra. He'd been taken from his home, imprisoned, enslaved, hurt, robbed of his arm, and taken to the edge of his sanity all by the people whose blood Keith had in his veins. 

"Less than about a hundredth of a percent," Pidge said. "Most of his DNA matches up to human norms, but there are a few extra fragments in there that aren't human." 

"How is that possible?" Shiro asked. 

"Alien genetic engineering? I don't know." 

"Is this something the Blade could have done? Changed his DNA?" 

"I... doubt it. Back on Earth, genetic splicing it done to the eggs or seeds at a single cell level so that the change can be spread through the organism as it develops. I don't think you could change the DNA of a grown organism in the same way. I don't know for sure. Genetic engineering really isn't my field and I have no way to know what technology was used to do this." 

Keith just stood there while they discussed this. Shiro wanted to believe that the Blade of Marmora had tampered with his blood somehow, but Keith didn't believe that. He'd activated Galra technology before meeting Kolivan. He'd been healed by quintecense. He'd had the knife marked with a Galra symbol for his entire life. Even Zarkon had said he fought like a Galra soldier. No, Pidge was right, whatever was in his DNA had been there for years. He couldn't blame Kolivan for the fact he was Galra, just for the fact he knew about it. 

"Kolivan didn't do this to me," Keith said. "He's the one who figured it out. I didn't know whether to believe him or not. That's why I had Pidge to the test. I wanted him to be lying." 

Keith's eyes were still fixed on the floor. 

"Keith," Shiro said, finally closing the distance between them. Keith braced himself for a blow, but Shiro pulled him into a hug. He was pressed against Shiro's armour, the cold material hard against his chest, but he still felt the arms around his back. How could Shiro hug him after this revelation? How? 

"We'll get through this, Keith," Shiro said. 

When Shiro let him go, Keith just sank onto the floor, sobbing hard. The tears ran from his eyes as he crumpled into a heap. 

Voices filled the air allowing with hurrying footsteps. 

"What's happening?" Lance demanded, while Hunk apologised for falling asleep when he was meant to be on watch, insisting that he'd, "just closed my eyes for a minute, I swear." Hunk's words skidded to a stop as his feet did, with the four Paladins surrounding Keith in a half-circle, looking down on him. 

"Are you crying?" Lance asked. "I didn't know you were capable of crying." 

"Not now, Lance," Shiro said. He extended a hand to Keith, "Come on. Let's go somewhere more comfortable to talk this through." 

Keith stared at the hand in front of him. He couldn't touch it, not with his own hand that was crusted with drying blood, Galra blood. But he couldn't stay kneeling in the middle of the pod bay forever. He pushed himself up to his feet and dragged the back of his sleeve across his eyes. 

"Is anyone else really confused right now?" Hunk asked. 

"Yeah, definitely," Keith said. "Allura wakes us up with the alarms saying Keith's run off and now he's here, crying. Are you being brainwashed or something?" 

"I'm not brainwashed. I'm Galra." There was no way any of this could stay a secret now, so he might as well get this over with, rip off the metaphorical bandaid and wait for the hatred. 

"Right. Because that makes so much sense," Lance said. "I mean, I can totally see it, what with the purple skin and the pointed ears and the claws that you _don't have_." 

"What he means is that he has fragments of Galra DNA in his genetic code," Pidge explained. 

"How Galra are you?" asked Hunk. "Are you half Galra? Quarter Galra? Was your mom a Galra? Your granddad?" 

"I don't know! OK? I first found out about this a couple of days ago and I wasn't sure I believed it until, well, about twenty minutes ago when Pidge did the DNA test." 

"This explains why the Blade of Marmora were willing to initiate you into their organisation," said Shiro, "and I suppose it's more evidence that Galra aren't inherently evil." 

Keith finally looked up at that, eyes meeting Shiro's. There was no hatred in his expression. Sympathy, yes, confusion, definitely, but no hatred. He risked looking at the others and saw the same. Not even Lance was looking at him like he was a monster. 

"So what does this mean?" Hunk asked. 

An alarm started blaring. Allura's voice announced over the comm system that another of Zarkon's robeasts was incoming. 

"It means we deal with that," Shiro said, "and we worry about what this means for Keith later."


	12. Chapter 12

Keith wasn't sure how to cope with the fact that his friends didn't hate him any more than he'd known how he would cope if they did. He kept expecting something, anger or outrage, or some reaction other than cautious sympathy. He expected more of the fear he'd seen in Pidge's eyes, but that hadn't been evident since those first few minutes. Apart from Allura, they seemed to have accepted this news about him without the loathing he'd expected. 

They went through the battle with the robeast as a team, forming Voltron with no more difficulty than usual. They were still in sync with their attacks, combining their movements and weapons as they always did. When they fought, it was as though nothing had changed. 

When they were back inside the castle, it was all awkward silence and stares. Allura just avoided him, barely saying anything to him and leaving a room if he walked in. The others tried to be friendly, but there was nervous strain behind their smiles. Keith could see Hunk studying him frequently, as though trying to find signs of the Galra in his physical appearance. Keith found himself doing the same, staring at the bathroom mirror, looking at his eyes and wondering if their unusual colour came from his alien heritage. He checked the hue of his skin, examined his nails for traces of claws. He studied the line of red that he'd accidentally sliced across his skin. He'd declined to go into the healing pod for it, saying that the cut was superficial, but really he wanted the reminder that his blood was red, that so much of him was still the same as the others. A few times a day, he would push his sleeve up and run his fingers along the line of scab tissue and tell himself that he was still who he'd always been. 

It was strange, but this revelation seemed to have reassured the others that the Blade of Marmora were genuine. Only Allura was still opposed to the idea of using the Blade's information to attack Zarkon's prisons. The problem was that they were still being tracked by Zarkon. They knew for sure now that he wasn't using Keith's knife to track them and everyone was convinced that Keith wasn't sending out signals in a brain-washed trance, but that didn't mean he was off the hook. He still thought it a strong possibility that Zarkon was somehow using Keith's unique biology to find them. 

They couldn't be sure though. Shiro suspected Zarkon might be using his connection to the black lion and Allura thought Zarkon might be tracking her. For all their arguments and discussions on the subject, none of them could know for sure. 

"We have to isolate the variables," Keith said over dinner after a particularly tiring battle. "That's what Pidge said about sticking my sword in a pod. Why not do that again? I could get in a pod and leave and we'll see whether Zarkon follows me or the castle." 

"If you do that," Shiro replied, "we won't be able to form Voltron. No, we should stay together, where we're stronger." 

"But then we'll never figure out how Zarkon's tracking us." 

At the head of the table, Allura said quietly, "I think Keith may be right." 

It was probably the nicest thing she'd said about him since she'd found out about his Galra DNA and she was saying that she wanted him gone. 

"We shouldn't split up the team," Shiro insisted. 

"You're right," Allura said. "I should go. Zarkon only found us after I'd awoken from stasis and he's been finding us at the castle ever since." 

"That's not true," said Keith. "Zarkon attacked me and Shiro at the Blade of Marmora headquarters. If he's tracking any of us, it must be one of us." 

"Look," said Pidge, "Keith's right that we need to figure it out, and I think he's right that Zarkon is either tracking him or the black lion. We can figure out which one it is by having Keith and Shiro separate for a bit." 

"And I already said no," said Shiro. "We need to stay close so we can form Voltron." 

"But we were already planning on separating. We've been talking about having me take the green lion in stealth mode and scouting out some of the possible targets. The team will be separated then anyway, so we might as well have Keith join me. That way, we can isolate the variables and plan for our raids on the prisons, and Allura can charge up Green with enough energy to open a wormhole if Zarkon attacks either us or the castle, so we can all get back together." 

Shiro looked like he wanted to argue, but Pidge had made some good points. Keith hadn't heard the plan about having her scout the attack targets since they'd kept him out of strategy meetings when they thought he might be brainwashed, but it made sense. At least this way, he wouldn’t have to float in space on his own waiting to see if Zarkon attacked. 

"Alright," Shiro said. "Keith will go with Pidge." 

"Are you sure you're OK with going on a mission with the only Galra team member?" Hunk asked. Keith winced at the words. So his assessment that Hunk was mostly OK with him might not be completely accurate. 

"I'm sure," Pidge said. 

So it was decided. Pidge loaded the coordinates of half a dozen possible targets into her lion while Keith stopped by the kitchen to collect some supplies for the trip. Then he made himself as comfortable as he could in the cockpit of her lion while she got into the pilot seat and launched them through the portal Allura opened. 

As they flew, Pidge asked, "Do you think my family might be in one of these prisons?" 

"I don't know. There were a lot of prisons on Kolivan's map, but we're starting close to Earth so the odds are better than if we attacked one further away, and the prison computers might have more information." 

"I know I shouldn't be so focused on my family when there's a whole galaxy of families out there, I just... I want to make sure they're safe." 

"I get it, Pidge. We all do. No one blames you for wanting to find them." 

"I'm just saying, what if we get into one prison and find records saying that they're in the prison next door? I know Shiro wants us to spread out our attacks so we're not predictable, but I'm not sure I'd be able to walk away from that. As soon as I find out where they are, I'm going to want to go straight in." 

"But you'd wait until you have a plan though, right? Wanting to get them out quickly doesn't mean being reckless." 

"I guess." 

Keith took a breath, thinking back over the recent days, all he'd been through and all he'd decided. "When I was with the Blade going through their mind game tests, I hallucinated an argument with Shiro. He wanted me to come back to Voltron but I wanted to stay and find out about myself, about my history. I realised during the test that being part of Voltron was more important than my past, than my family, but I still got to have both. I found out something about myself and I got to fight with Voltron. The same's true for you. Attacking the prisons and freeing prisoners is absolutely part of our job as Paladins, you're not having to give anything up because freeing your dad and brother is doing your job with Voltron." 

"Sounds like you've been doing a lot of thinking lately." 

"Yeah. I have. I've decide that I'm staying with Voltron for as long as you guys will have me. If it turns out Zarkon is tracking me, we'll figure out a way to shield me." 

"What do you mean 'as long as we'll have you'?" Pidge asked. "You're one of us, part of the team." 

"Allura doesn't think so." 

"Allura just needs some time to get used to the idea. I mean, you had your major freak out, you've got to give everyone else the chance to freak out a little bit too. Even I freaked out a little bit." 

"You were scared of me." 

"No. Not really." 

"When you saw that Galra face appear on the DNA analyser, you looked scared." 

"Maybe a little scared, but only because I didn't know how you'd react. I was scared of what the news would do to you, and I was right to be scared. You tried to jump in a pod and run away to who knows where." 

"You were scared _for_ me?" Keith repeated, not quite able to comprehend. 

"Of course. You're my friend." 

"Even with Galra DNA?" 

"You can't help your DNA. That would be like blaming someone because their parents committed crimes. It doesn't work like that. You can't take the blame because someone who shares a few gene sequences with you is a homicidal maniac trying to take over the entire galaxy." 

"Well, when you put it that way..." Keith managed a smile, the first genuine smile he thought he'd had in days. 

Pidge's dash beeped and she turned her attention back to where they were flying. She shifted Green into stealth mode, which she'd been tweaking to give them more time, and she flew into range of a shipyard orbiting a red dwarf. The shipyard was a huge construction of metal, a giant space station that put the castle to shame, with multiple warships docked along its outer edge, either in the process of being built or being repaired. Between the huge warships, almost like toys in comparison, were cargo ships and fighter pilots and other smaller craft. 

"Woah," Pidge murmured, guiding Green through long arms of the structure that were wider than buildings, with mechanised containers ferrying workers and material from the station's hub out towards the ships. 

"Well, this would be a hell of a target," Keith said. "If we could steal a couple of those ships while we take out the station, we wouldn't be at such a disadvantage when we come up against a large fleet." 

"Not to mention that stealing the ships would let us get the freed prisoners away to safety." Pidge shook herself. "But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Commencing scan." 

Green scanned the outer defences of the station, recording the structure and layout and what details were available about the docked ships. Then they got out of range of the station's sensors before the lion's cloak ran out of power. They left the stealth mode to recharge as they flew to the next target and performed the same procedure. 

Along with the shipyard, they scanned two weapons factories, a listening post, a repair dock, a plant that seemed to be creating Galra fighters, and another that was making the sentry robots. Most of these target sites were on planets, which would make it tougher to do an attack. Voltron would have a lot more manoeuvrability in space. Plus, Keith kept seeing those huge warships. Even if they were only able to steal smaller spacecraft, that might help them with attacks on other targets. If they had Galran ships, they could pretend to be Galra themselves and get through the defences that way. Plus, Keith had to admit, he really wanted to blast that thing out of existence so it couldn't produce more warships to rain down death on innocent worlds. It seemed Pidge agreed. 

"It's like when you go shopping," she said, "and you find something you like in the first store but your mom drags you round every other store in a ten mile radius just in case there's something better at a better price so you end up checking out everything under the sun only to go back to where you started and get the first thing you saw." 

"You want to blow up the shipyard?" 

"I want to get into its records. It's huge. They must have thousands upon thousands of prisoners working there. Even if a lot of the exterior work on the ships is done by automated machinery, there must be a lot of manual work that needs to happen. Even if my family aren't there, there must be records on a huge number of prisoners. With its location, it might even act as a distribution hub, shipping prisoners out with the ships that have been in for repair and maintenance. I need to get inside their computers." 

"OK. So I guess we'll go back and report in to Shiro that we've found a good target." 

As though summoned by the sound of his name, Shiro's face appeared on the comm screen. 

"You need to get back here now. We're under attack." 

"Firing up the wormhole," Pidge said. A knot of tension unravelled in Keith's stomach. He wasn't the one being tracked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had a few messages on Tumblr recently about the disappearance of one of my Sterek AU's from AO3. There was a fanfic called Unchained which I removed from the internet a few months ago. This [Tumblr post](http://jessicameats.tumblr.com/post/159758532259/book-news) should shed some light on why I had to take the fanfic down. 
> 
> I know Unchained was one of my most popular fics, so I hope people will be as excited about this news as I am.


	13. Chapter 13

Shiro was trying to deepen the bond with his lion, since they were now confident that Zarkon was tracking them through Black, especially after Red had come to meet Keith and Pidge as they came back from their scouting mission. They'd destroyed the latest robeast attacker and taken the wormhole to a new location, but it was no use planning their offensive strategy while they were still on the defensive. Pidge was helping Coran with the repairs to the castle from the last fight, but there was nothing specific Keith was supposed to be doing to help, so he went back to the training deck. 

He left his bayard for once and instead decided to practice with his Marmora blade. He might as well get some use out of it since they'd gone to the trouble of retrieving it once it was eliminated from suspicion as the source of the tracking signal. It was currently in its knife form and Keith wasn't sure how to make it change into the sword. He didn't particularly want to go into battle with a weapon he didn't understand properly. He'd had it his entire life without it ever transforming, so he would need to work at it to get it to shift forms now. 

He started a fight against the training robot, using a low combat setting. He was more interested in trying out the blade than testing his own limits today. He fought off the robot through round after round, the knife staying in its usual shape in his hand, no matter how he concentrated or willed it to grow. He tried focusing on the glowing symbol and just got knocked on his ass because he wasn't paying enough attention to the robot. 

The longer it took, the more annoyed he got, but it was clear that anger wasn't the way to tape into the knife's power. He didn't know what was. 

He'd activated it before by giving it up, but putting the knife down here just meant he had no weapon to defend himself with and he got knocked on his ass again. 

He increased the level of the combat robot, hoping that he could instinctively call on the knife's power when he felt threatened. He wasn't particularly optimistic about this attempt though, especially since he hadn't activated the knife during those fights with the Blade when he'd been getting battered half to death. He fought a few combat rounds with the robot at the level when he was struggling to hold his own, until his tiredness reached a point where the robot got inside his defences and sent him flying. He decided that he needed a breather and called out to the pause the program. 

He didn't even bother with getting up quite yet, just sat there on the ground of the training deck, breathing hard and trying to gather his thoughts. This was getting him nowhere. He might soon have to accept that his knife would be shaped like a knife for the foreseeable future, whatever Kolivan might have said about his Galra blood in his veins. 

Keith stared at the knife. Galra blood. Was it possible that was the key? It was quite likely he'd got some of his blood on the knife while he'd been fighting the Blade because he'd been bleeding from his shoulder at the time. That might be the answer. 

He removed the glove of his armour, exposing his hand. He wasn't going to be as stupid as to cut open the palm of his hand because that would hurt like hell, but he could cut a tiny nick into the back. There was a slight sting of pain as a barely grazed the surface of his skin leaving a drop of blood on the tip of his knife. For good measure, he twisted the knife and touched the hilt to the cut as well, getting a tiny mark of red onto the grip. That should be enough, since he was sure he hadn't been getting the knife coated with blood back with the Blade. 

He reattached his glove, took a break to get some water, and then resumed his training. 

His knife remained stubbornly a knife for the next two hours. 

***

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Lance asked, when Keith finally emerged from the training deck, feeling about as battered as he'd been back when he'd been going through his tests. 

"I'm training," Keith said, defensive, because he didn't want to admit that he'd spent about half a day failing to get his knife to react to him. 

"Training doesn't usually involve you looking like a zombie afterwards." 

"I don't have the energy to argue with you right now." 

"See. That's my point. You always have the energy to argue with me." 

Keith tried just walking back to his room, but Lance just wouldn't let this go. He insisted on following Keith through the corridors of the castle, talking about how worn out Keith looked. If his arms weren't so tired, Keith might have smacked him round the head just to shut him up. That was a definite point in favour of not training to this point of exhaustion again. He got into the elevator and leaned against the wall, glaring half-heartedly at Lance while he tried to think of an explanation that would involve admitting he was trying to make his knife transform. 

"We've got some major battles coming up," Keith said, "and they're going to be tough. I want to push my limits to make sure I don't hit them during a fight." 

"Yeah, but you're no good to us in a fight if you're half dead from training. Being part alien doesn't make you invincible." 

"Believe me I know that." 

"Then is this some overcompensation thing? You got your ass kicked by the Marmorans so you've got something to prove?" 

"It's nothing like that," Keith said, although a part of him had to wonder if that might be something to do with it. The bad dreams weren't helping either. Wearing himself out physically made it easier to sleep, stopped him from waking up to nightmares of turning purple or hurting his friends. 

"Look, Keith, don't make me say it." 

"Say what?" 

The elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open. Keith pushed himself up from the wall with effort and started out towards his room. 

"I'm worried about you," Lance said quietly. 

Keith froze. He turned back. 

"What?" 

"I'm not going to say it again!" Lance said. "And if you tell anyone I'll deny it." 

Lance seemed to find the admission of concern for Keith almost as difficult as Keith had found the admission of the fact he was Galra. That was enough to make Keith smile a little. It was as though being part Galra actually made Lance hate him _less_. 

"Thanks," Keith said. "Now I'm going to bed. Anyone who wakes me up for anything less than our impending deaths will get stabbed through the eye." 

"Thanks for the warning," Lance called. "Goodnight." 

"Night, Lance."


	14. Chapter 14

They had been planning this attack for days. Keith was starting to see combat diagrams every time he closed his eyes. They had the information Green had picked up during the scan along with the information from the Blade of Marmora about Galra standard security procedures and a bit of background on the structure of the shipyard and how all the different elements were connected together. They had plans for what they would do if the information was accurate and plans for what to do if this turned out to be a trap, although most of the group had come around to the idea that not all Galra were evil now and so were more willing to believe in Kolivan's information. They had plans and contingencies and escape routes. They had rendezvous coordinates for if they could rescue enough slaves to steal the Galran ships, and rendezvous coordinates for if everything went to hell and they needed somewhere to regroup if they got separated. 

The ultimate goal, if they could pull it off, was to disable the shipyard, load the slaves onto the ships, blow the shipyard to smithereens, and then make it out of there with stolen warships and a lot of people who had good reason to hate the Galra. Most of the security on the shipyard would be in the form of sensors, drones, and the sentry robots, with the Galra soldiers controlling things from a central control room and various security hubs based around the huge structure. If they could take out the automated defences, that would leave them with much less to worry about, but the Galra soldiers could potentially reset the systems that they took down, so they needed to deal with the Galra first. 

The problem with attacking a base this big was that there were a lot of the security hubs, one near each of the docking ports for the larger of the ships. They also had to consider that the ships might have some crew still aboard. They had to take out the security hubs without given anyone a chance to tip off the other hubs or the whole place might go on lockdown and then they'd never be able to get the slaves out. 

The night before the attack, Keith was supposed to be resting, but he spent most of the night staring at his ceiling, running scenarios through his head in an endless sequence. If this worked, it would be a major victory against the Galran Empire, but more than that, if this worked, it was proof that the information they'd received from the Blade of Marmora was genuine. If that happened, it was evidence that being Galra didn't make them evil and then maybe Keith could finally accept what he'd learned about himself. He would no longer feel like he wanted to cut a part of himself out. 

The day of the attack, he climbed into the pilot's seat of Red and launched. They opened a portal to the other side of the star from the shipyard and settled into a matching orbit that would keep the star between them and the enemy. They would be completely hidden from sensors, so Keith cut Red's engines and let them drift, waiting for the signal. Pidge would go in first, using her stealth mode to sneak onto the station and hook up to the computer systems behind the main scanners. She would then disrupt the scanners long enough for the rest of them to get in there. Keith hated waiting. It made sense for Pidge to go in alone because secrecy was important in this, but he still hated sitting on his lion doing nothing while someone else took the first risk. He told himself it didn't matter. They'd all be taking a big risk soon enough. 

He used Red's scanners to get a reading on the local area as best he could, given that the solar mass they were hiding behind blocked his sensors as well. There was no sign of a Galra fleet waiting to ambush them, but he made a note of the asteroid belt further out that could be shelter for some smaller spacecraft. He didn't find anything particularly useful and he quickly ran out of things to do to distract himself from the fact that he hated waiting. 

"I'm in," Pidge's voice came over the comm in a quiet whisper. No one replied and she didn't say anything else since they were keeping chatter to a minimum to avoid detection, but Keith let out a breath of relief. If Pidge made it inside without enemy detection, they were on to a good start. That was the first step successfully completed. The fact that there were about a thousand other steps still to complete did not diminish this achievement. 

Keith kept his eyes on the scans, with occasional glances at the timer he had running to remind himself that it hadn't been hours, it just felt that way. He really hated waiting. 

"OK," Pidge's voice came again, "scanners going down in ten..." 

As she went through the countdown, Keith brought Red's engines back onine and fired the boosters, already accelerating around the star. As she finished her countdown, Red soared around the edge of the star and the shipyard came into view. There were two large warships docked to it and a huge number of smaller ships. They just had to hope that those ships weren't running their scanners because Pidge couldn't disable them like she had the shipyard's. 

No one shot at them, which was a good sign. Keith flew Red up beneath one of the long structures that stretched from the hub of the station out to the docking ring, nestling between the edge of the station and the hull of one of the docked warships. Unless someone got outside in a spacesuit, he should be shielded from detection by both. There was no sign of an alarm being raised. Of course, it was entirely possible that someone wanted to lure them in to get them to leave their lions. The only way to find that out though was to take the risk. 

"Stay alert, kitty," Keith told his lion. He activated the face mask on his suit and had his lion open up the exit to let him drift out into space. He didn't risk using his thrusters, just pushed off from Red and let momentum carry him into the hull of the space station. He grabbed onto a metal ridge and edged himself along until he could get close to the nearest airlock. Time to see if the intelligence the Blade had provided was accurate. 

Keith entered the external access code into the control panel beside the airlock and the door slid open for him. He hauled himself in. The outer door shut and he grabbed hold of a convenient handle as the artificial gravity kicked in, just in time to keep from face planting onto the deck. This was one of many moments he'd been concerned about. Right now, he was effectively trapped, with the airlock door sealed by automatic systems. If this really was a trick to get the lions, this would be the ideal time to trap them. 

But the air cycled into the airlock and then the inner door opened exactly as it was supposed to. So far, so good. Keith took hold of his bayard and crept into the Galra space station. 

The first hallway was empty and he set off at a jog towards the security hub that he was supposed to take out. After about a minute, he hit his first obstacle. He rounded a corner and ran straight into a slimy, grey creature that was pushing a huge cart full of electronic stuff. The creature cowered back and from the ragged clothes he was wearing, he was one of the slaves who was imprisoned here. 

"It's OK," Keith said. "I'm with Voltron. Pretend you didn't see me and I can get you out of here. Understand?" 

The creature nodded. 

"Thanks. I'm serious. Don't tell anyone you saw me." 

The creature nodded again. 

Keith moved past the creature's cart and hurried on. 

He reached the security station without any more near misses and prepared his bayard. He had to be quick if he wanted to take down the soldiers inside before they could raise an alarm. According to Kolivan's information, there should be two soldiers on duty inside. Keith shifted his bayard into his left hand and drew out his Marmora blade with his right. A weapon in each hand, he opened the door and charged into the room. 

He took in the position of the soldiers in an instant and hurled the knife, hitting one Galra right in the face with the blade as he charged across the room and took the other down with a stab through the chest. Two dead soldiers in under a second. He almost wished Lance were here so he could rub the blue Paladin's face in his easy victory, but there would be time to gloat later. Assuming he survived. 

"I've secured security hub one," Keith said into the comms. 

"Great," said Pidge. "Hook up your gauntlet to the console so I can hack in and disable the security measures." 

Keith did as he was told, holding up his arm against the data port of the main control console. He waited while Pidge worked, listening to the signals from the other Paladins. Lance announced that he'd secured his first target while Pidge was still disabling the security measures controlled by the one Keith was at. Then Pidge was done and Keith had to move to his next target. 

He heard the communications between the others and Pidge as they each secured one of the security hubs. Each of the hubs controlled an area close to it, but they could also trigger a lockdown of the whole space station in case of an emergency. If even one of the hubs remained active, it could destroy their whole plan. 

Keith had to dispose of one group of roving sentries and evade another on his way to his next target, but he made it without much difficulty and secured that as quickly as the first. He was just starting to feel that things were going smoothly when he heard Hunk give a yell. 

"Oh no!" 

"Hunk, what's happening?" Shiro asked. 

"I think we're in trouble," Hunk said. There were sounds of weapons fire picked up by the comms, but that was quickly drowned out by Hunk's screaming. 

"Hunk!" Shiro called. The only reply from Hunk was more screaming.


	15. Chapter 15

"Hunk!" Several voices called out the name at once, but there was no coherent answer. 

"I'm heading to his location," Shiro announced. 

"No!" cut in Pidge. "I can see him on the monitor. He triggered a security trap. I'm deactivating it." 

Keith hated not being able to do anything, but he was positioned halfway around the giant space station from where Hunk was. It would take him half an hour just to reach him. He had to trust in Pidge to work her technological magic. 

Sure enough, after a few moments Hunk's screams stopped. 

"Thanks, Pidge," Hunk said. "Guys, watch out for black triangle vent things on the floor. They shoot some kind of electrical energy." 

"Hunk," said Pidge, "you have to secure the last of the security hubs. If someone heard you, they could trigger a lock down." 

"On it." 

Shiro added, "Be careful. The trap might have alerted security to your presence." 

"Yeah, I'm guessing it did. That's a lot of sentries." 

Keith waited anxiously, listening to every sound that made it over the comm, from the rapid laser fire to Hunk screaming again, this time in some sort of battle cry. When things went quiet again, it was Keith who asked the cautious, "Hunk?" 

"I got the sentries," Hunk said, breathing hard. "I'm heading to the security hub now." 

Time seemed to take forever, and Keith was almost wondering if they should just call this attack off, when Hunk announced that he'd taken the final hub. 

"OK," Pidge said. "That gives me access to all the security systems on the shipyard. Give me a minute to shut everything down." 

She shut down the automated security systems, including the electric traps like the one Hunk had tripped, and disabled the sentry robots. Keith spent the whole time anxious to get moving, eager for the next part. Finally, she was done and was able to use the security systems to identify the locations of the few Galra soldiers who were still on the space station. She started giving instructions to each of the Paladins and Keith set off at a run to the first of his targets. 

By now the Galra soldiers would have figured out that something was wrong and that they were under attack, so the fights wouldn't be nearly as easy, but Keith was almost looking forward to that. This was his chance to prove whose side he was really on. He found the first cluster of soldiers heading to the security hub he'd seized earlier. They saw him coming, shooting blast of laser that he deflected with his energy shield. Moments later he was on them, slicing through flesh, dodging blows, and letting his fighting instincts take over. He might have Galra DNA but he would take down this Empire with his bare hands if necessary. 

Pidge directed him to two more groups of soldiers which he disposed of as quickly, but as he approached the airlock into one of the docked ships, he found a Galra commander there, clutching a slave in front of him as a shield and aiming a gun to the poor creature's head. Another cluster of slaves were cowering nearby, shackled together and staring in terror at the Galra commander. 

Keith skidded to a halt, a long stretch of hallway between him and the Galra. 

"Drop your weapon," the Galra said. He kept his gun pressed to the head of the alien he held. "Do you think you could reach me before I kill this one? How about them?" He nodded towards the group of slaves. Keith thought he saw the slimy alien he'd bumped into earlier huddled in the middle of the group. "You care about protecting them, right? If you don't want to cause their deaths, you should put your sword down right now." 

Keith hesitated. He knew he couldn't attack. The Galra had a gun and there was almost a hundred metres of hallway between them. There was no way Keith could get to him before he could kill at least the hostage he was holding and probably about half of the others too. But if he put down his sword and surrendered, then what could he do to help any of them? 

"I'm going to need some help here," Keith muttered into his comm. 

"I'm on my way," Lance said. 

"It will take Lance at least ten minutes to get to you," Pidge said. "You have to stall." 

Keith assumed she could see the situation on her security monitors. 

"OK," Keith said, as slowly as he could get away with without raising suspicion. "I'm going to put my sword down. You should let them go." 

He bent slowly, crouching down and laying his bayard sword gently on the deck. 

The Galra commander smirked, "You're so weak. It's pathetic, the way you want to fight but you can't even let one worthless slave die. How do you expect to win this war if you can be so easily manipulated. You-" 

The Galra's words were cut off as something hit him in the head. In that moment of distraction, one of the slaves jumped up, a small, furry creature that latched onto the Galra's arm and sank its teeth into the flesh. Keith grabbed his sword up again and started running, but the slaves did too and they were a hell of a lot closer. 

The one who'd been a hostage was able to pull free of the commander's grip now and slammed a limb into the Galra's stomach. Others jumped in, punching and kicking, biting and scratching. One even raised the shackles still wrapped around its wrists and slammed them down into the Galra's head. The huge, grey alien Keith had bumped into earlier reached out and grabbed the commander's head, twisting hard enough that the crack reverberated through the hallway. 

Keith skidded to a halt in front of them, his sword completely unnecessary, and watched the slaves continue their fight until they were damn sure the commander was dead. 

He smiled at them, confident that they weren't going to have any problem recruiting fighters from these people.


	16. Chapter 16

Keith was exhausted by the time they were done on the station. Even with Pidge in charge of the security centre coordinating efforts, and even with the prisoners hurrying to help on their side, the space station was huge and the ships attached to it all had at least a skeleton crew. The Voltron team had to scour the station for any more Galran soldiers, taking out pockets of security officers and soldiers they'd missed the first time. The sentry robots on the station weren't a problem anymore, but there were all the Galra who'd been here ordering the slaves about their duties and someone on one of the ships had been alert enough to what was going on to activate the ship's sentries. It turned out Pidge couldn't deactivate those because they were on a different system. 

Keith lost track of the number of sentries he took down, the number of soldiers he fought. His whole body was aching and sore. Despite his armour, he probably had bruises over half his body and he wanted food and sleep. Had they been here hours or days? He occasionally heard the others talking over comms, asking Pidge where to go next, so he knew that the others were alive, but he just wanted this fight to be over. 

Then Pidge swore. Pidge was not usually one for swearing. 

"What is it?" Shiro's voice came over the comms. "Pidge?" 

He sounded scared on her behalf, but they all felt what it was she'd been swearing about moments later. The whole space station shook, the walls and floor vibrating. Keith grabbed the wall to keep his balance as the floor lurched beneath him, then it was still again. 

"One of the warships just tore loose," Pidge said. "I'd locked them down, but a group of Galra must have taken back the ship and they just blasted their way free and tore off a chunk of the docking bay. There's a whole section exposed to vacuum down there." 

"Are they running?" Shiro asked. 

"No," Pidge answered. "No, they're powering up weapons. We need to form Voltron! Fall back to your lions." 

Keith had lost all sense of direction during this endless fight, but he felt the familiar tug towards Red. He set off at the closest he could achieve to a sprint after all this fighting, passing dead soldiers and frightened slaves on the way. One slave nearly shot him in the head with a stolen weapon before recognising him and shouting frantic apologies at his retreating back as he raced past. The slaves were taking weapons from the sentries and fallen soldiers and basically letting loose on anything Galran they found, and none of the Paladins could keep order among them, so Keith just hurried past without saying anything. 

The station shook twice more as he ran, the vibrations nearly knocking him off his feet. Presumably the warship was blasting the hell out of the space station. He reached the airlock he'd entered through, glad to find that the slave rebellion hadn't damaged any of the systems. He had a moment to stand still and breathe even as the air was being sucked out of the space around him, and then the outer door opened on vacuum. He used his thrusters to manouvre back to where Red was hidden, glad that it hadn't been this ship that had broken free. Red was still tucked safely between ship and station, waiting for him. 

He sank into the pilot's chair, hands on the control, trying to hold onto enough adrenaline to keep him through this fight. Red blasted away from the station and his controls lit up, identifying the Galra ship and the other lions coming out of hiding. Keith steered towards Shiro, ready to form up, but whoever was on board that ship must have seen them and must have known what was coming. 

Before the five lions could even reach each other, the warship had switched power from weapons to engines and was rapidly accelerating away from the station. Clearly the Galra on board didn't want to die. 

Keith let himself feel a moment of relief. They weren't going to have to fight a battle out here as well. He sagged into his seat and could happily have curled up and gone to sleep in Red's embrace. 

"Come on," Shiro's voice came through the comms. "We need to get the prisoners evacuated before they bring back reinforcements." 

Keith hated that Shiro was right. He wanted to rest, but they couldn't ignore the people back there. He steered Red back to the station. 

***

Keith joined Pidge in the lab, where she was working through the mass of data she'd stolen from the Galra shipyard. She had set up a face recognition program to search for images of her brother, but she didn't have a photograph of her father, so that hunt was going to be considerably more manual. The shipyard had hundreds of slaves, with more passing through on the ships that docked, but the Galra didn't bother to keep detailed records of what they considered trivial slaves, so there wasn't going to be an easy way for Pidge to search. That meant she'd spent hours holed up in here, working at it. 

"Any luck?" Keith asked. She just shook her head. 

He continued, "We're nearly at the rendezvous coordinates Kolivan gave us. You should come up to the bridge." 

In the wake of the very successful raid on the shipyard, even Allura had acknowledged that there was a possibility the information the Blade of Marmora had given them was accurate. She still wasn't happy about it, but Shiro wanted them to meet Kolivan formally to discuss an alliance. They'd left the stolen warship full of slaves who were figuring out how they fit in their new army. There would probably be a lot of arguments before things got sorted out, and a lot of the new soldiers were taking crash courses in using Galra technology, but people were willing, and that was a good thing. 

Those that hadn't been willing to fight had taken the smaller ships and headed off back to wherever it was they came from or just in hunt of a quiet life away from the war. Keith couldn't really blame them for wanting to get out. 

Walking back up to the bridge with Pidge, Keith thought about the past few weeks and all that had changed. He felt hopeful, for the first time in what felt like a long time. There was still a hell of a long way to go. He wasn't going to forget the map with all those prisons and work camps lit up, but they'd won this battle and massively increased their forces. With a Galra warship on their side, they could go after other targets, free other slaves, and hopefully convince other worlds that it was worth joining in the fight. 

And Keith knew that the Blade of Marmora were legitimate, which meant that he wasn't part monster. Whatever was in his blood, it didn't change who he was or what side he was on. 

"You're smiling," Pidge said. 

"Huh? Oh. I guess I'm excited." 

They walked onto the bridge and the others were there waiting for him: Shiro, Hunk, Lance, even Allura and Coran. His family. What did blood matter when he had them?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I'll ever write a sequel to this one. I didn't want to wrap things up too tidily with them finding Pidge's family on the first place they tried, but I wanted to leave it on an optimistic note. So Pidge has the data and they have allies and they can keep looking. It's possible at some point I'll come back to this AU and write them finding the others, but this was a Keith-centric fic not a Pidge-centric fic, so it seemed better to end with him getting a satisfying ending. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. I hope you've enjoyed it. Thanks to those of you who've commented - comments are always appreciated.


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